Loading ...The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley
The Ten Commandments, tithing and the need to ask forgiveness are just a few of the teachings that Christians can jettison when they embrace the unadorned gospel of Jesus Christ, says author and pastor Andrew Farley in his new book, The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church. This gospel boils down to a simple equation: Jesus plus nothing.
The Naked Gospel challenges Christians to rethink everything they thought they knew about their faith. Farley proposes a simple – yet paradigm-altering – focus on Jesus. It requires as much unlearning as learning, and a willingness to peel away the layers of religiosity that obscure what Jesus accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection.
As a young man, Farley was consumed with the fear that God was disappointed with his performance as a Christian. An intense desire to excel in the spiritual arena led to full-on addiction to street evangelism and Bible study—it got so bad that Farley couldn’t sleep at night unless he had witnessed to someone, so he’d jump out of bed and run to a 24-hour convenience store to evangelize. He ended up losing his friends and hitting rock bottom, exhausted and burnt out. “How would you like to become a Christian and be miserable like me?” could have been his testimony, he says.
Farley’s experience is admittedly extreme, but that background helps him understand why many Christians opt, as he did, for hoops to jump through to impress God.
Christianity is more than a behavior-improvement program dressed up in religious clothing. Farley explains the mystical “exchange of nature” in which those who place their faith in Christ undergo a change at the center of their being, becoming a new person in Christ. It’s as though new, living DNA is inserted into a Christian’s spirit, Farley says. So, Jesus lives in a Christian right now, providing them not just with a ticket to heaven, but with the power to change and live a new life.
This new life in Christ means that Christians do not need the Ten Commandments as a moral guide. In fact, Farley says, Christians need to get over their fixation with Old Testament law. He points to the Book of Hebrews as a lengthy argument for abandonment of the Old and adoption of the New. “Understanding that the law has no place in the life of a Christian keeps us from the error of legalism,” Farley says. “Life is radically different on this side of the cross, a truth we must recognize as we study the Old Testament.”
If Christians are truly living in Christ, they don’t need a moral code to instruct them on how to live righteous lives. Rather, “the motivation for daily living in the New Testament centers around acting like the person you truly are and benefitting from Christ’s life in the here and now.”
The new covenant means that for Christians:
- their relationship to religious law is now all gone;
- their old selves are all gone;
- their sins are now all gone;
- obstacles preventing closeness to God are now all gone.
Farley has encountered resistance to his message, and he understands that The Naked Gospel will be controversial among some Christians, even though it is totally Jesus-centered. “If it’s the real thing, it will change lives radically but it will also bring controversy. Wherever the real gospel is taught it results in false accusations of many kinds,” he says.
“As we put forgiveness, freedom, identity and a new life side by side, we encounter a gospel that at first glance appears dangerous, but upon further examination we discover how brilliant God is in designing a bulletproof covenant that brings real relationship and change into our lives,” Farley writes.
About Andrew Farley
Andrew Farley is no stranger to challenging traditional beliefs and encouraging Christians to take another look at what they believe. The lead teaching pastor of Ecclesia (EcclesiaOnline.com), a growing church on the high plains of Texas, Farley also co-hosts “Real Life in Christ,” a thought-provoking television program that disputes many long-held ideas about Christian living. It airs every week on ABC-TV in West Texas and New Mexico.
Farley earned his bachelor’s degree from Furman University, a master’s degree from The University of Georgia and a Ph.D. from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Before moving to Texas, where he is now a tenured professor at Texas Tech University, Farley served as a professor at the University of Notre Dame for five years. He teaches courses in second language acquisition and an Honors seminar course titled “Early Church and Contemporary Christianity in Conflict.”
Farley has received teaching excellence awards or recognitions from three different universities. He has authored or co-authored a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and three textbooks published by McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
He lives in Lubbock, Texas with his wife, Katharine Hayhoe, and their son, Gavin.
Guitarman874
I just got a new book called, “The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley.
I really like new things.
I like new toothpaste, and being the first person to squeeze the tube. I like a new bar of soap too.
I like a new loaf of bread, and pulling out the first slice that’s not a heel.
I like a new Dr Pepper. Enough said.
I love the smells and sounds of new books. Even if it’s just for a minute, I’ll always thumb through a new book that arrives. (The vast majority of my new books come from Byron at Hearts & Minds Books in Pennsylvania. So new books come to me through the mail).
I love new strings on my guitar. They seem to resonate with a brilliance and vibrancy that I had simply forgotten about.
I like new clothes, especially ones that are fairly made and simple.
I like new pens and new notebooks.
I wasn’t so fond of New York, but liked New Jersey just fine.
And I like my old hats. New hats are just hard to break in until they get a couple of good sweats in them.
But in general, I like new things.
There’s a part of the Bible called the “Old Testament.”
Testament means, “Law” or “Covenant.”
Old means, “Not new.”
In the Old Testament, there are about 600 or so rules (613 to be exact) that the Jewish people were to obey. Here’s a sampling of some of the commands:
* A house contaminated by mildew is ritually unclean. (Leviticus 14:34-57)
* The corners of a field that is reaped must be left for the poor. (Leviticus 19:9)
* Loans to brothers must be without interest. (Exodus 22:25)
* Should a man die childless, his brother must marry the widow and have children in his name. (Deuteronomy 25:5-6)
* Do not practice magic. (Deuteronomy 18:10-11)
* Do not tattoo yourself. (Leviticus 19:28)
* Do not wear made of both wool and linen. (Deuteronomy 22:11)
* Do not eat any reptiles. (Leviticus 11:44)
* Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head. (Leviticus 19.27)
* Do not eat worms found in fruit or produce. (Leviticus 11:42)
* Do not demand repayment of a loan after the seventh year. (Deuteronomy 15:2
There are also 10 really famous commands in the Old Testament. There are many people who say that if we would return to these Ten Commandments, then our nation would be healed and Jesus would return and the Royals would win the World Series.
The real issue is this: for many years, people have tried to figure out which rules in the Old Testament they were supposed to obey and which ones they could ignore. And some people get legalistic and try to obey them all. And some people get frustrated and think that obeying God is crazy. And some people think that people who try and obey God are crazy.
There’s a second part of the Bible called the “New Testament.”
The New Law.
For fear of getting too preachy, listen to a couple of verses out of the book of Hebrews:
“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear” (8.13).
The New Law replaces the Old Law.
Jesus came, fulfilling the Old Law and replacing it with a New Law.
And his new law is not rule after rule after rule. Here are the rules we’re supposed to follow:
1. Love God with everything in you.
2. Love each other like Jesus loves us.
No rules about sacrifice.
No rules about haircuts.
No rules about tattoos or mildew or speeding.
But I’m convinced that people who claim to follow Jesus are much more interested in following rules than they are in learning how to love one another.
Because love is hard and costs you everything.
And love is messy and beautiful, like a sloppy wet kiss.
And love will make all of creation new once again.
And you really need to read Andrew’s book, because the gospel is all about the way of love of Jesus, not keeping rules.
Apr 23rd, 2010
Jeff Rhodes
I’m sharing #thenakedgospel quotes and my thoughts of the book on twitter! Follow me @chaordicjeff. Search for the hashtag: #thenakedgospel.
This is a great book!
Apr 26th, 2010
dkam136
I was recently sent the book “The Naked Gospel” to review. The author, Andrew Farley, came from a somewhat extreme background. He was a street preacher gung ho on saving the world for Christ. He spoke of being unable to sleep if he did not tell one person about Christ that day. He talks about his lifestyle ending up burning him out and crying on the floor of his apartment in a kind of mental breakdown.
Coming out of the breakdown, he discovered what he refers to as “the naked gospel.” What is it, you ask? He calls it “Jesus plus nothing.” You can probably guess that this bothered me for a number of reasons. (1) We always have to place Jesus in a contextual frame of reference to understand him. We find that even Farley does this in his book when he contextualizes his own theory of atonement. (2) He seems to be falling for the ‘trade one extreme for another extreme.’ He at first was so legalistic then he moved to the other extreme of, “Jesus paid it all” and all we have to do is trust in that.
The book also make use very often of the book of Hebrews, but he seems to use it in way that feels like proof-texting. Many of his quotations from the OT were also proof-texts as well to create a “system” that may not necessarily be as uniform as he makes it out to be. His insistence on on “biblical” way again and again also rubbed me the wrong way because there are many different stories in the bible, and they do not form just one thought at the end.
All in all, I felt like the book wandered a bit and I felt a bit lost by the end.
Apr 27th, 2010
ahswan
Last week I received a review copy of The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. The text on the back begins, “Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives. It’s the truth you may never hear in church.” (For disclosure purposes, I should note that I have my own book coming out in the next few months on the “Jesus plus nothing” Gospel, even using that exact phrase.)
The book is not really what I expected. Farley appears to be a fairly young guy, and the title and back cover text is fairly provocative. So, I expected something a bit edgy, or at least bold. However, on the whole I found it to be rather tame (possibly the work of an overly conservative editor?). The book is a fairly quick read–even armed with a highlighter and stick-on tabs (my usual way to read non-fiction), it only took 2-3 hours to finish.
Bottom line, I agree with most of his conclusions, although I’m still on the fence about some of the ways he gets there. While I stay pretty close to Paul’s arguments in Galatians, Farley relies more heavily on Hebrews, which I found quite interesting. One of the problems for me is that Farley doesn’t necessarily “show his work;” that is to say, he doesn’t lay out all his thinking from point A to point B (the book itself seems a bit disorganized), and doesn’t always provide a lot of context for the verses he quotes. At least for me, reading many of his arguments left me scratching my head:
* For example, his discussion of covenants is based on the Hebrews 9 passage, and he does not address Paul’s discussion of the Abrahamic covenant in Galatians. According to Farley, all covenants are like wills, not taking effect until the death of one of the parties. However, this is not the case with the Abrahamic covenant (and with other OT covenants), where death was not a requirement, but a penalty for not keeping the covenant. As the concept of a required death is important to Farley’s thinking, I would like to have seen Galatians brought into the discussion.
* On pages 97 – 100, he says that it takes zero sin to make us sinners. We are born sinners, without having sinned. However, while I think I know what he is trying to say, I disagree; I believe we are born with a nature that is defective, prone to sin. However, as Paul says, “all have sinned” and that is what makes us sinners.
* He also seems to believe that Christians no longer sin; it is “sin” living in us that sins.
* In pp 110-114, he tries to explain how our “flesh” is not our old self, nor is it our sinful nature. I don’t think he succeeds. I think “flesh” is simply acting out of human effort, rather than being the work of the Spirit. However, Farley says things like the flesh “is something that is with us, but it’s not us.” He seems to be saying that Christians are automatically morally 100% pure, even though we often choose to follow the flesh (whatever it is) rather than the Spirit. So, “living a life of dependency on the Spirit is really nothing more than being ourselves.” Again, I think I know what he’s trying to say, but I don’t think he succeeds.
* On p143, he states that Jesus’ death satisfied God forever, implying that he believes in a Calvinistic, wrathful God. I don’t think it was God who had to be “satisfied.”
* He explains the Lord’s Prayer (“forgive us as we forgive those…”) as being an Old Covenant prayer, no longer applicable. While I would agree that much of Jesus’ preaching was indeed preaching the Old Covenant to show our need for a real savior, I have a different understanding of our need to forgive.
* Finally, he tries to reconcile James with the rest of the NT by saying that “Faith involves a decision–a work,” so that faith without a decision to believe is a dead work. I don’t think this works at all; rather, James seems to be talking about what Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit. Basically, if you’ve no fruit, you don’t have the Holy Spirit (and faith).
This isn’t to say that this isn’t a book worth reading; he does bring out a lot of good points that could be very helpful to a great many people. And, as I said, I do agree with his basic conclusions:
* Jesus took care of our sins, once for all.
* The Gospel is that we are saved by Jesus, plus nothing else.
* We live our lives by grace; again, Jesus plus nothing.
So, if readers only understand these points, the book has been worthwhile.
Apr 28th, 2010
Chris Wiles
It’s Jesus versus Paul.
Two recent books have promoted a “new” way of thinking about the gospel relative to the traditional doctrines of the evangelical church. [...]
THE NAKED GOSPEL
Farley’s book is written in reaction to the legalistic hyperspirituality that dominates some segments of the evangelical church, and as I read his opening chapters I could not help by sympathize with someone who had been so burned by those who had allowed duty to supplant devotion. It was such an experience that led Farley to reexamine the content of his faith, a process that led him to “the naked gospel.”
The emphasis in Farley’s gospel is the New Covenant. The cross becomes the dividing line between the New and the Old. Which means that everything – yes, everything before the cross has no value for the believer. The law, says Farley, has “no place in the life of a believer” (p.233).
This also means that Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom (e.g,, the Sermon on the Mount) are intended only to expose sin and convict non-believers by showing an unattainable standard of righteousness. Jesus’ teachings therefore have no real value for believers, as a result of the “dividing line in human history” (i.e., the cross):
“Couldn’t we resolve all this by realizing the dividing line in human history? Peter, James, John, and Paul wrote epistles about life under the New Covenant. Years earlier, Jesus was teaching hopelessness under the Old. The audience wasn’t the same. The covenant wasn’t the same. And the teachings aren’t the same. . . Jesus harsh teachings aimed at the religious kill you every time.” (p. 86, 87)
It really is Jesus versus Paul (and James, Peter, John, Jude and whoever wrote the letter to the Hebrews).
Despite his protests to the contrary, Farley falls into the error of antinomianism (anti = “against” and nomos = “Law”). He affirms the use of the law in conviction of sin, but denies its use in the lives of believers.
This stems from a confusion of justification (the act of being declared righteous by God through Christ) and sanctification (the act of being made righteous through the Holy Spirit). Farley suggests that “The moment we enter into Christ at salvation, our old self is obliterated” (p. 104).
In Farley’s terms, this means a rejection of Luther’s view of “legal fiction:” that we are “simultaneously justified and yet sinners.” Farley says:
“God certainly doesn’t condone our wallowing in a poor self-image. The risen Christ doesn’t join himself to filthy worms. The Holy Spirit doesn’t dwell in dirty sinners. Christ only unites himself with those who are like him in spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn’t reside in someone who remains even 1 percent flawed by sin. But we’ve been perfectly cleansed. And we’ve been made perfectly righteous at our core through spiritual surgery” (p. 106).
[...] Good works? Unnecessary for the Christian life. The “good works” of James’ epistle are nothing more than “opening the door in your life” (p. 197-199).
My concern with all this is simple: in avoiding the dry moralism of religion, Farley has forced the pendulum to swing too far the other way into antinomianism. In writing to the Philippians, Paul takes a strong stance against religious moralism (Philippians 3:1-8), as well as against antinomianism, those who make themselves “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18-19).
The danger of Farley’s errors is that he substitutes for legalism a similarly unfulfilling message. He presents us grace without cost, and in so doing minimizes the fulfillment that may be found in the formation of Christian character.
Farley opens the book with a quote from another book called The Naked Gospel, a text that he reports was “burned by the church.” In so doing is he preemptively vilifies potential critics as legalists? I pray that such is not the case, and that he remains open to a fuller understanding of the gospel in the future.
[…]
CONCLUSION
Jesus versus Paul. For Farley: Jesus’ teachings are dismissed. For Rudel, Jesus’ teachings are ultimate. These men can both be wrong, but they cannot both be right.
The problems generated by this approach to scripture is good evidence of the dangers of pitting one author against another, rather than finding solutions toward harmonizing the Biblical message. [...]
There is simply no reason to pit Jesus and Paul against one another. The story of the tax collector and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9-14) defies the notion of covenant inclusion, but instead situates the gospel in the context of righteousness and mercy. Jesus and Paul must be therefore be said to complement, not conflict with one another, in presenting a God who in His great mercy, could love the unlovable.
[…] Farley and Rudel are both very intelligent and I cannot say more to affirm their search for truth in the midst of populist religion. But I am sorry to see that, in the absence of proper guidance, these writers have presented a gospel that is far less fulfilling than the gospel of Christ, and therefore have offered “no gospel at all” (Gal 1:7).
Both writers have provided online platforms for online discussion, which I again appreciate, though with the cautionary note that technological connectivity is not the same as academic accountability.
To that end I urge pastors and lay leaders to teach the hard issues – this will mean teaching some big words to your people. The benefits of a good, gospel-centered education far outweigh the difficulties, promoting spiritual health and discernment.
It is also worth mentioning that the New Perspective has now moved from the writings of Wright to a popular audience. This means that there will be an increased need for familiarity with this issue, given that the definition of justification is now on the debate table (incidentally, this is the focus of the next ETS conference). […]
View the original (and complete) review at: http://thornscompose.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/jesus-versus-paul-new-perspectives-on-the-gospel/
Chris Wiles is an avid writer and speaker. You can visit his blog at http://www.thornscompose.wordpress.com, where you can read, subscribe, or book him to speak.
Apr 29th, 2010
addsalt
G.K. Chesterton followed himself into heresy only to find he ended up discovering Orthodoxy. This book discovers the reformation. The main difference is Chesterton realized the irony of “discovering” something like Orthodoxy.
With a warning on the first page like “You might throw this book down in disgust; you might pick it back up again in curiosity; you might shake your head in frustration as you wonder, ‘How could I have missed this before?’ or ‘Is this guy crazy?’” (15), I was expecting something different than what I found. I have been to my share of churches around the world, and I suspect there would be very few reformed churches who would have any issue with the foundational theology of this book.
Following deeply in current reformed theology, the book is a cheerleader for total depravity and perseverance of the saints. Unfortunately, by the end of the book we end up with a good reason why Jesus died, but no real reason for why he lived. We need to seriously work through why the gospel writers thought it so important to document all those events between Christmas and Easter. We can not just short circuit it all and have our Christology consist totally of a virgin birth and a sacrificial death. We would then be missing Christianity at the point where it is so important. We dishonor the memories of the early Christian martyrs when we say that they must have died because people didn’t like them going around preaching that humanity needed to relax and stop trying so hard. Just coast it out because Jesus has done it all is not a particularly dangerous message. This is where the inaugurated eschatology needs to step; this is where the Kingdom of God really meets Rome.
The original review can be found here.
Apr 30th, 2010
perrodin
The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley, a reaction to Christian-legalism. The author grew up in an environment where he would feel compelled to do. He describes getting out of bed at night, to ‘witness’ at the gas station, so he check the box and go back to sleep.
It is from that hyper-works based system in the background that he jumps ship and finds himself, at the polar opposite. He describes it as ‘Jesus plus nothing.’ In this basic sense, while we are talking about our justification before God, he is right. Our status before God isn’t based on a performance review, rather our identity is found in Christ alone. Though he then takes this concept and tries to wash away much of the Bible.
He uses the texts of Hebrews (focusing on the Old/New covenant divide), Romans 6 (focusing on the concept of death to sin, rebirth into Christ), among other similar passages which focus on this transition from old to new. What Farley does though, is make this transition absolute, with no looking back. We can not look to anything written before Christ’s resurrection to understand our identity today. As he explains, everything before that event (even Christ’s own teaching!) is based in an understanding of the law. With the resurrection everything changes, our salvation is found in this new identity, therefore we can’t look back to the law. The law, as he explains, is only meant to show us our sin and lead us to Jesus. He even describes the gospel accounts of Jesus in this same way. Jesus is talking one way before Friday, then another way after Sunday, essentially.
While I agree with his central premise, our salvation is only found in faith in God’s work in the death & resurrection of Jesus, but how he gets there & then where he goes with it I think is very wrong.
Let me discuss a few of the larger issues I had with this book.
The initial question that follows when we through out the law, well how are we supposed to live if not by the law. He answers this simply by saying the Holy Spirit is the means by which we are guided. While I think this is true, should we not ‘fact check’ that against scripture. His dismissal of the law, becomes problematic around this issue also. Taking his argument that the law is meant to show our need for God’s salvation—don’t you think reading the law in how to live can guide us, whereby we see our need of God to fulfill what we are called to be.
The missional aspect of the gospel is completely lacking from this account. Sadly he has made this ‘Jesus plus nothing’ into a very personal salvation. There is no call, no discipleship, no proclamation. In the very last line of the book he says,
Hmm…can we just take a moment and think about the word ‘gospel’. I mean it is in the title, so hopefully we are under the understanding that it is a good news, a good news which is to be proclaimed. Think about how differently Matthew concludes his book,
Thanking God is definitely part of what we do after we receive that new life, but it doesn’t stop there. It seems the author is happy to let it stop there. On my reading, it seems the author is making the Christian life one of freedom from the law and a life following the Spirit. Well yes, but what does that entail? He enjoys the book of Hebrews, but he failed to describe Hebrews 11, 12 where the author of Hebrews lays out what faith is.
It seems the author is reacting to a harsh experience with a negative church experience and is instead offering a cheap grace. Here take this salvation, nothing is required of you, nothing to do or worry about. This isn’t really what any of the Bible describes life under the covenant {new or old} as.
Lastly I would wonder what parts of the Bible can we keep. Obviously, the Pentateuch is out (except maybe Genesis 1-3, since that has the important science & sin account), the Prophets are probably out too since they explain seeking God as among other things as obedient following His law, Psalms probably (definitely Ps. 119, since it’s an ode to the law) can be counted out too, we should probably just throw out the Writings like Proverbs and the like also, since they all take Torah observance as the underlying normative narrative.
I wonder about the New Testament also. He dismisses everything Jesus says before his resurrection. He describes it as doing what the law does; Jesus’ teaching is to point them to their need of his life giving resurrection to come. Though it is curious in that the gospels we written after his resurrection; they were at least partly inspired and definitely understood under the rubric of the resurrection. So wouldn’t they not include something of value for the believer?
While I can agree in his desire to move believers & non-believers alike to an understanding of God that doesn’t involve a ‘do good to make God happy with me’ salvation plan. Though his path towards that objective end seems problematic at best. I would definitely desire a presentation of the gospel and the subsequent life of the believer with very different terms. We need to make sense of the law as New Covenant believers, though not by means of simply throwing it out. We need to make better sense of our connection to the Old Testament and the people of the Book. Finally understanding our place and purpose within Christ and his life giving sacrifice.
The original review can be found here
May 1st, 2010
Dan
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting much when I started reading this book. However, it has been a very pleasant surprise. The author has opened my eyes to so many things I should have known all along. Needless to say, I have had some special “Duh” moments.
I have been reading it for a couple weeks now, but I can’t seem to read very long and I have to stop and think about what the author says. More than a dozen times I have set the book down and said to myself, “If this is true then that means…”.
Savoring this book as an experience is an example of why I love books. I recommend it!
http://edan0889.blogspot.com/2010/05/naked-gospel.html
May 3rd, 2010
gieseguy
I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Here he takes on several key issues that most Christians believe in and shoots them down. One of these areas is the idea that Christians are sinners. This is something preached and believed in by most Christians. He lays an excellent groundwork for the work of Christ’s sacrifice and how believers are a new creation. They are forgiven etc… He is not the first to declare this but he does it with a lot of clarity. Another key area that he deals with is the difference between the “old man” and the flesh and sin. Farley believes a Christian’s old man is no longer an issue but the issue is with the flesh and sin. He makes the point that this is very important as it affects how one views themselves. If our old man is present it means we are at war with ourselves so to speak. Again a very good explanation on our identity. He writes very effectively on how the law is not meant for the christian. This is perhaps one of the best points he makes.
The second half of the book Farley seems to start interpreting a lot of verses based on his redemptive theological lens which at times seems to be dancing around what seems to be obvious truth. A term he accuses others of doing. Well I suppose we all do it to some degree. Difficult passages are solved easily by saying they are applied to non Christians. The seemingly difficult faith vs works passage in James is easily solved by saying it is referring toward salvation only. Another example is the over-comers in Revelation. These are according to Farley “all Christians”. His interpretation of 1John on confessing sin does seem however to fit rather well to this lens.
The end of the book was also a bit disheartening as he mentions the signs and wonders in acts were mainly for the lift off of the church and are not really meant for today. He does not go so far as saying he does not believe in them but merely that we now have the written word so we don’t need them any more. His next book is also going to explain how those in Heb. 6 who tasted of heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost were really non believers which were enemies of God. Can anyone say more dancing. All in all though it is worth the read just for his excellent treatment of the identity of the believer.
May 5th, 2010
Doc Whitehouse
Andrew Farley’s Naked Gospel is an invitation to celebrate the newness we receive in Christ, to learn who you really are and to just be yourself. For many, this book will likely shatter paradigms, illusions and preconceived ideas about who we are and what we are “supposed” to do as Christians.
Farley reminds us that “the old has gone; the new has come,” and, as Christians, we live under the new. That means, folks, that we don’t answer to the Law. We live in the Spirit just as the Spirit lives in us. We are born sinners and that’s just part of our make-up. What we don’t need to do is spend all our time self-flagellating and “getting right with God.” All of our sins–every. single. one.–were wiped out on the cross. We’re wasting our time and denying the saving work of Christ when we fixate on our flaws, shortcomings or sins. Unfortunately, most Christians focus there and not on the resurrection that happened three days later. Farley points out that “we’re inundated with a lackluster gospel that advocates partial forgiveness, a pressure-filled motivation for behavior change, and the promise of earned rewards in heaven or a cash return while on earth” (p. 192).
Farley helps to liberate the reader from this lackluster gospel, providing a new way of thinking about the message and work of Christ. And, if we take the time to adjust our views, liberated we become. When we stop focusing on the inevitable (that we will continue to screw up), we can focus more on the important things of loving God and people–which is really what it’s all about.
This book is an easy read, though the language may not be as accessible to those who are not Christians. It assumes that the reader has a Christian background–whatever form that background may take. For me, personally, it helped to articulate and even put a scriptural basis to what I was already thinking and the way in which I viewed God and what I should be about as a Christian. It’s Christ in and through me theology. The question is whether I (or any of the rest of use) will live fully in this new paradigm, this new covenant.
Farley’s examples were, at times, not particularly useful or fell short of the point he was trying to make. The book wandered quite a bit and I found myself wondering how much longer would this go on. However, the message is worth reading, and the implications are worth considering.
The Naked Gospel is a call to differentiation, to embracing who you are as a person created by God, to liberating yourself from the list of things all “good Christians” should do–from prayer to confession to tithing. This book is a reminder that Jesus liberated us from the restrictions and limitations of the Law to provide us with the freedom to love God and love people.
May 6th, 2010
Kyle Kirkley
There has occurred only a couple moments in my life when I’ve read something that radically reorients my perspective. In The Naked Gospel, Andrew Farley ambitiously sets out to do just that for his readers. The unique circumstances of his argument, though, are that he’s not really sharing anything new. What he does do is offer a new way of looking at things with which we are already familiar. Farley does an admirable job of pointing out the ramifications of the new covenant ushered in by Jesus’ death and resurrection. He unabashedly claims that faith in Christ entails a complete break with sin and the law that accuses us of that sin. Instead, because we are (in reality) free from guilt, our penchant for focusing on sin, forgiveness, and “behavior modification” is misguided. Farley argues that (as odd as it seems) we are righteous, without need for further forgiveness. In fact, it is in our new nature to act in accordance with God’s will.
All this talk of forgiveness, freedom from the power of sin, and the new covenant is familiar; but Farley’s translation of that information to a new paradigm of understanding our new identity in Christ is bold. Farley argues that we have the freedom to pursue the goodness of God without concern for building a right relationship with Him. We have it already; we just need to think, feel, and live according to that reality.
Farley’s prose is simple and straightforward. Although the momentum of the book stalls in places (especially toward the end), he builds his arguments steadily and completely. I would recommend The Naked Gospel for any Christian who is ready to have their assumptions challenged.
May 6th, 2010
wickdsmaht
I think I understood the concept of this book before (Jesus plus nothing), but I’m not sure if I ever really thought about it as much as I have since I finished The Naked Gospel. I don’t feel like a particularly “religious” person — I know that rules aren’t my rescue and I don’t go to church because it’s just what I do on Sundays. But, Like pretty much every other Christian out there, I recognize and follow a lot of the Christian “rules.” On the other hand, my faith is a living, breathing connection with the Almighty, and I think that’s what Farley is trying to get his readers to look for. The whole thing, for me, boiled down to one thing — do we trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us in all things? Or is He not enough, so we look to guidelines and rules to figure out how we should live as Christians? Trusting in something that you cannot see or fully comprehend is HARD, especially when there are all sorts of other guidelines to follow that make life a lot easier. Do I trust the Holy Spirit like that? Not as much as I should. Do I look to rules to tell me how I should behave? Of course. But this book has made me think about what I trust to guide me in my daily walk. Since I finished the book, I’ve been more aware of when I’m being “religious” and when I’m really asking for and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Pros: Really, really makes you think — especially if you come from a background of religiosity. I think this would be a great book for non-Christians who think that Christianity is just a bunch of rules, although some of the Christian jargon might scare of potential readers.
Cons: Loose analogies and stories that clumsily relate to the rest of the content in the book. When your thesis is so simple, there isn’t a lot of meat and the filler is sometimes obvious.
Read my full review here: http://letseatgrandpa.com/2010/05/07/35-the-naked-gospel-by-andrew-farley/
May 7th, 2010
mhasty
The Naked Gospel is a really thought provoking book. Farley is not afraid to challenge the status quo of what we have always believed in order to live a more true life according to scripture and Jesus teachings.
The Naked Gospel speaks heavily of the relationship between law and grace and how the Christ follower is to live life in light of those things. According to Farley, and Scripture, when we are in Christ we are made new and we are dead to sin and flesh. We are to live as new creatures. He challenges the idea of being born with a sin nature and defaulting to that, or blaming it for our sin, by reminding us that:
“If we are living under the assumption that sin is the most natural thing for us, then we are being deluded. We’re different from the way that we were before. We’re not alive to God and we must come to grips with an essential truth: It is more normal more fitting and more like us to display the fruit of the Spirit than it is for us to display sin!”
We are no longer slaves to sin but we are made new in Christ. Farley encourages the reader to live in this new freedom we have in Christ. He encourages us to live in Christ and to stop trying to do everything on our own.
Overall The Naked Gospel is a good and challenging read.
http://thecommoncup.tumblr.com/post/582096240/the-naked-gospel-by-andrew-farley-a-book-review
May 8th, 2010
Jason Bybee
“The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley
Disclosure: This book was provided to me free of charge by The Ooze Viral Bloggers.
I recently received a copy of Andrew Farley’s book The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church. The back jacket alone was enough to pique my interest:
Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives. It’s the truth you may never hear in church. The Naked Gospel is a chapter-by-chapter assault on the churchy jargon and double-talk of our day. It puts forth a message that is simple but life changing. With a fresh take on Scripture and an unapologetic style, The Naked Gospel will challenge you to reexamine everything you thought you already knew.
Jesus plus nothing? An assault on churchy jargon? Be prepared to reexamine everything you think you know? Understandably, I was stoked about reading this book.
In the end, the book failed to deliver on the back jacket’s promises.
The Naked Gospel is a good — not great — read. Farley’s primary conviction is to purge legalism — in all its forms — from the Christian faith. The author aims to do this by demonstrating the ineptitude of the “Old Covenant” and the complete superiority of the New Covenant founded by Christ. Beginning with his own upbringing, Farley confronts the myriad paths we seek to earn our salvation by adding something (evangelism, Bible study, prayer, etc.) to the Jesus = Salvation equation. But, as the bold font on the jacket flap declares, the “naked gospel” is Jesus + nothing.
What’s surprising, then, is how much of an emphasis Farley places on the words of the NT epistles. Farley posits that most of Christ’s teachings were addressed to “Old Covenant” thinkers and the purpose of these teachings was to demonstrate to the people their need for a Savior. This diminishes the teachings of Jesus — in particular, the Sermon on the Mount — as archaic and mostly irrelevant to Christian experience; conversely, it elevates the NT epistles as the clearest representation of Gospel-life.
And this is where I fundamentally disagree with Farley. I would argue (vehemently, in fact) that Christ stands as the full revelation of God’s will (Col. 1.19). Christ stands in tremendous continuity with the OT law and prophets; in fact, He claims to be their embodied fulfillment (Matt. 5.17). Farley never deals with this in a satisfactory manner, instead building a case for the inferiority of the Old Testament covenant. For the author, the gravity point in Scripture is found in the NT epistles (in particular, the book of Hebrews). But this is yet another point where I disagree with Farley. I understand Christ as inaugurating the Kingdom reign of God through His ministry (Matthew 4.17; Mark 1.15). Jesus himself claims that His teaching regarding the Kingdom of God is “good news” (Luke 4.43), the very reason He was sent by God. For Farley, the only portion of Scripture that seems important is the material that takes place after the resurrection. (Nevermind the fact that the Gospels were written AFTER the resurrection.)
This is not to say that the text is without benefit. Farley demonstrates the sufficiency of Christ’s death to bring about reconciliation and atonement for those who believe. Readers will come away with a renewed understanding of the nature of the New Covenant. And Farley’s honesty about his own struggles with legalism are helpful and they give the rest of his arguments an air of authenticity. But these merits must be held in tension with what I would consider to be considerable weaknesses to Farley’s presentation of the Gospel.
May 9th, 2010
hopepastor
The Naked Gospel: a review…
One thing is for sure…when you add the word “naked” to your book title it adds interest! I don’t care if the book is “The Naked Hunter”, “The Naked Garbageman”, or “The Naked Cab Driver”; if it has the word naked in it, it’s going to get a second look.
The thing that is great about the book “The Naked Gospel” is this; it does not need the word in the title to make it appealing! From the back cover of the book comes this introductory line, “Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives.” Those three phrases alone should be enough to incite a reader to plunge into the pages, anxious to seek this stripped away relationship with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For my dollar, the book does not disappoint.
In today’s church culture, especially in America, modern-day Christians have become comfortable in living out their faith through a mixture of Jesus plus something else. It may be Jesus+denominational allegiance. It may be Jesus+heritage/tradition. It could be Jesus+what my granny told me about Jesus. Regardless of what the “plus” is, the American church lives it out, and therefore has lost some, but not all, of its power. Not power in the political realm, or power in the economic world…no, the power lost is the power of the Gospel. The power to not only teach but live in such a way that people, specifically lost people, see Jesus as relevant to their life and needed in their life. From multi-million dollar budgets to continued sexual abuse scandals (in all denominations) the church has lost her way, and books like “The Naked Gospel” remind us what we are truly supposed to be about.
I personally identified with this book on many levels, not the least of which were the sections regarding the difficulty so many Christians today have concerning the old and new covenants of the bible. So many of us have struggled, or continue to struggle, with the concept of living “in Christ” while at the same time feeling pressure to adhere to the old regulations of the Old Testament. Sometimes these pressures are from church leadership, while in other instances the pressures fall from our peers around us. The author states it eloquently when he says, “Grace is the system that the Holy Spirit uses to counsel and teach us on a daily basis.” Grace is what so many of us lack in our daily lives, as well as what is lacking in churches. Not simply grace in terms of being nice to another person, but grace in its mightiest term…the grace of Christ which draws us to God and teaches us how to live.
Author Andrew Farley is the lead pastor of Ecclesia Church in Lubbock, Texas. You can find his church website here Ecclesia Church. You can also reach the website for this book here The Naked Gospel.
May 10th, 2010
youthbear
On page 27, Andrew Farley has the reader take a quiz entitled “The Naked Gospel Quiz”. The outcome of this quiz literally blew me away. I had my husband take the quiz with similar results. According to Andrew Farley, most the things that we had been taught during our time of becoming disciples of Jesus in the evangelical church were untrue. They were not biblical, not found anywhere in scripture, but instead man-made concepts which we had incorporated into our understanding of what it meant to be a “good Christian”. Needless to say, I was hooked. I had to find out if this author was crazy or if he was correct in his claims. I couldn’t put the book down that night, hungrily devouring chapter after chapter. According to this book, Jesus is enough! But we as the church have tried to incorporate a system of expected behaviors which combine both the good news of Jesus with the law of the Old Testament. This has led believers down a confused path of grace mixed with legalism. By reading this section of the book, I experienced a new found sense of freedom. The author backs up his claims with scripture and many times refers to the historical setting that the scripture was written in or the people it was directed at. He also interjects personal stories and experiences which keep the reader connected to him and the book. I will say the book bogged down some for me in the middle as he seemed to repeat some of the concepts again. Also, during part 4, burning martryoshkas, I did not believe he hit the mark concerning sin in relation to ourselves. I felt he was merely playing with semantics and did not convince me of his point. The book finished strong with part 6, we don’t marry dead people and part 7, ego assault. These sections emphasized Jesus, his death and resurrection and the New Covenant. I think this book is a must read for anyone who has been a part of the traditional church and feels burdened by the inability to measure up. It resembles another of my favorite books, Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli, in that both books emphasize that we can never ever measure up to our man made standards, and we shouldn’t have to. Jesus did it all and we actually disrespect his sacrifice by trying to add to that with our own rules. Jesus plus nothing, how exciting is that! This book would be excellent for small group study and discussions and discussion questions are included in the back of the book for each chapter.
http://youthbear.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/the-naked-gospel/
May 10th, 2010
Warren Wade
warrenwade.wordpress.com
Typically, before writing a blog, I spend way too much time analyzing it. Jotting down my ideas as I read, highlighting things, writing questions in the margins. This time, I just want to write about how this book spoke to me. This isn’t really a “book review.” I mean, it involves a book but it’s more about what this book said to me that I want to write about.
Recently, I had actually been feeling quite down for various reasons. Work was stressing me out. Things with the loved ones in my life weren’t how I wanted them to be, fighting, breaking up and more fighting. And I had been keenly attuned to the failures in my life to live up to what I wanted and perceived my life in Christ to be.
I had actually taken a break from doing these book reviews because I needed to de-stress myself and trying to read a book within a relatively short period of time (when your life is chaotic as mine had been), trying to make the review meaningful and all the while allowing the book to speak to me seemed too much.
Then I got my message from Mike (I’ll be honest, I love it when I receive a message from him). More books have become available for review. I remember the Naked Gospel being available with another book that I actually thought looked much more interesting; however, I felt compelled to go with this book.
I set all of this up for you, my fictitious audience, because this is an important work. This book has spoken to me more deeply than many have in the past (which is partially why I’m apparently super-verbose right now).
In no sarcastic way — I cannot do this book justice by going chapter by chapter and review it.
What I can do is describe what has happened within me.
I, like many others, have lived a life defined by what I knew of the Gospels, of salvation, and of life. This book has drastically, wonderfully altered that. Remembering why I came to place my trust in Jesus, being reminded of my place before God, and encouraging me to life more fully because that’s all that I desire — this is what the book has done for me. I became a Christian because the promise of a redeeming God, a sacrificial son, and a guiding Spirit were so good, so real, that I surrendered myself to it. To be ensured that I was loved by God and that Christ took up dwelling within me was the most exhilirating experience of my life.
All too shortly after that, I was told that my life was to reflect a God who demanded constant repentance or risk losing mine and other souls.
You know what, I digress. And I’m going to leave this digression in here because its a reflection of what’s happening in my mind right now. It’s a confluence of spirit, goodness and life and leads me to talk and talk and talk.
This book will help you identify yourself. And you are in Christ and he in you. Be encouraged by that. Take that truth and live. That’s what we’re supposed to do with it.
May 16th, 2010
cfalvo
I recently received a copy of The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley to review.
This was a book I really wanted to read, even though it was not in the vein of book I usually read…my wife even commented something to the effect of “You wanted to read this?”
Two big red flags jumped out right away.
1) “You might throw this book down in disgust.” (15) If you have to tell me, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
2) “Are you ready to peel away layers of religiosity in order to discover an exhilarating reality – always keeping in mind that truth is supposed to set you free?” (28) I have a healthy distrust of current Christian writings on Christian freedom. “Freedom” seems to be the new catch-word in the church. Many authors have tackled the issue. They always, always, always lead to a watered down gospel of cheap grace. Farley is no exception.
My biggest observation was Farley’s attempt to reconcile ‘law and gospel’.
There were times I felt that Farley was playing the semantics game. Here’s an example from early on:
“Paul wrote to Timothy:
‘We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for the lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious …. And it is for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.’ 1 Timothy 1:8-11, italics added
What purpose does the law serve? Paul says that it is exclusively for unbelievers. Under the Old, God recognized two kinds of people – Jews and Gentiles. Today, he recognizes two different groups – believers and unbelievers. In the Old Testament, the law was only for the Jews. Today the law speaks to only one group, namely, unbelievers. “(47, bold added)”
Using Farley’s own text, “lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious” we can clearly see that ‘unbeliever’ in not mentioned by Paul at all.
I think a discussion Luther’s simul iustus et peccator would have been better suited here, however, I think Farley would disagree with me. Why simul iustus et peccator? We are, at the same time saint and sinner. And therefore, the law still applies to us. Christ tells us that “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.” (Luke 16:17) Again in Matthew 22:40, Christ tells us, “On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” The commandments Christ refers to here is love of God and love of neighbor. Christ clearly didn’t discount the Law and we shouldn’t either.
I feel that Farley has swung too far into anti-nomianism. Because of that, I didn’t want to read this book.
Overall, I was not very impressed with the book. I did not find it to be a particularly difficult read. I think the naked gospel that Farley presents waters down the gospel and make grace cheap.
May 17th, 2010
Bill Nieporte
In the early pages of his book The Naked Gospel, Andrew Farley offers a warning to those who might read his book. “You might throw this book down in disgust; you might pick it back up again in curiosity; you might shake your head in frustration as you wonder, ‘How could I have missed this before?’ or ‘Is this guy crazy?’” (page 15)
I have to say that none of these thoughts came to mind. Without any intent of being pejorative, I think the reason this book is not as shocking as Farley might suppose is that it is not as fresh or radical as he might believe. There is a strong movement afoot advancing the theological framework that Farley calls “the naked Gospel.”
Bob George calls it Classic Christianity.
Charles Trumbull speaks of the same theological premise in his book Victory in Christ: Dead Unto Sin And Alive Unto God.
Eighteenth century missionary Hudson Taylor called this theological framework “the exchanged life.”
Neil Anderson has written extensively about this subject, as has
Bill Gillham,
Andrew Murray,
Watchman Nee,
David Needham,
A.W. Tozer, and others.
On the modern evangelical front,
Philip Yancy,
Max Lucado,
and Tony Evans
have also written very compelling books rejecting legalism, and advancing grace.
Chuck Swindoll has called the experience “a grace awakening’ in a book by the same title.
Perhaps the most articulate spokesperson for this movement is author and speaker Steve McVey, whose book The Grace Walk is very similar in style and scope with Farley’s book. I commend Steve’s website at http://www.gracewalk.org
What Farley brings to the table, among other things, is a neat new moniker for the movement: The Naked Gospel. What a wonderful book title! I wanted to immediately pick it up and start reading. I am a fan of nakedness, especially when my wife is involved, but I digress.
As I am writing this review, I am drinking “naked” juice – juice with no additives or preservatives.
The book title made me want to start reading.
The book jacket comes complete with a fig leaf, and the back cover intro book reads,
“Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives. It’s the truth you may never hear in church.”
Whether they agree with all the author’s conclusions or not, readers will quickly understand and relate to what Farley is addressing. So much of what happens in most churches comes out of a “Jesus PLUS” mentality.
The PLUS may mean that we dress up Jesus with many outfits that make us feel better.
Jesus PLUS “join this church.”
Jesus DRESSED UP in our preferred “translation” of the Bible (i.e. you must read the KJV).
Jesus PLUS our morality code (i.e. don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t go with girls who do).
Jesus DRESSED up in our religious traditions “worship rules.“
Jesus PLUS “don’t forget to give your tithes and offerings” (probably the biggest PLUS in most churches).
The Naked Gospel is Farley’s reaction to all these additives to genuine Christianity (which is simply salvation by grace, through faith). The reaction is intense because the additives often create a performance based legalistic religion that is Christian in name only. That was certainly Farley’s experience. His story makes him sound like the poster child for the adverse effects of guilt laden religious practices. At one point Farley shares how he faced a spiritual and emotional breakdown due to his inability to live under the heavy yoke of legalism. It was out of this experience that Farley began to understand “the naked gospel.”
But it’s not just “salvation” that’s at issue with Farley. It’s also “sanctification.” In many (dare we say most) churches, spiritual progress (growth, maturation, development) is a matter of fixing ourselves through personal development, spiritual disciplines, or missional faithfulness. Farley disagrees. Sanctification is God’s work through us, not our work for God. While not a passive process, the action on our part is submission and surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is NOT, Farley would assert, the result of our effort to achieve something for God.
Many will read this book and accuse Farley of antinomianism (anti-law). A careful reading of his book, however, should dispel that notion. Farley does not reject the law, he rejects legalism. If the law is seen as a means of self-improvement, or as a method of controlling behavior (either our own or that of others), then the law becomes a tool for legalism. That Farley rejects – as should we all – but that it is not the same things as opposing the law. He simply rejects is as a tool for spiritual or personal growth.
Instead, Farley draws on the writings of Paul and the author of Hebrews (whoever that was) to affirm a difference place for the law in the Christian worldview. The intent of the law (so says Paul) is to be a “nursemaid” bringing us to an awareness of our brokenness and our need for grace (Jesus). Once we have Jesus, however, the law is superseded by the indwelling Spirit. Instead of being written on exterior tablets of stone and parchments of paper, the desires of God are written on the heart. Christianity becomes a spiritual exercise of inside-out transformation, rather than a human enterprise of outside-in obligation, expectation, and religious duty.
Several years ago I experienced my own “grace awakening.” Much like Farley, I experienced a sense of brokenness and frustration. I was doing all I could to please God, thinking that my actions would earn God’s favor (a text-book definition of legalism). No matter what I did, however, the results were always the same: frustration and an overwhelming sense of failure.
In my study, sitting in a dark corner, tears rolling down my face, I prayed. I’d been there for the better part of a day, but in my mind, I’d been there for more than a year. In many respects, things were going well. I served a growing congregation. I was married to a lovely woman and had two healthy, happy children. Yet things were not right. Despite taking all the advised actions for self-growth and personal rest, I still felt overwhelmed and on the verge of burn out. “God, I don’t know what else I’m suppose to do. I am doing everything I know that you want, but nothing seems to be going right. I need you to answer one question. ‘What is it that you want from me?’”
In the moments that followed, I heard God communicate very clearly. “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you. You are my child and I love you.”
In the days that followed, I realized that the Gospel was a “Jesus plus NOTHING” arrangement. If I never preached another sermon, taught another Bible study, cared for another homeless person, said another prayer, or gave another dollar, I would still be loved and accepted by God. Then something else began to happen. Christianity had become a “have to” arrangement for me. I have to preach, give, care, and share. Not anymore. Now I wanted to do those things. Overwhelmed by God’s amazing grace, I wanted to do all those things and more. It wasn’t out of obligation and expectation, but love. I realized that I didn’t have to live FOR God. It was better than that. I realized that Christianity was lived FROM God.
The law has become much more beautiful for me because I now see it as an expression of God’s heart. It’s not a obligatory burden or self-help book. It’s a means of better understanding the transformational work that the Holy Spirit is undertaking in my life. Those who read Farley’s book carefully will see that this is his view of the law as well.
The book is not without some difficulty. Like many who write from a “naked Gospel” perspective, the crucifixion and/or Pentecost becomes a dividing point between the Old Covenant and New Covenant. This appears to place Jesus and his teachings in a subservient position behind Paul. While I doubt that this is Farley’s intention (nor that of those who advocate this theology), it seems to me that more thoughtful reflection needs to be given to this concern.
That said, I think that Farley’s book (and that of others writing from this perspective) needs to be taken seriously, especially from those in the emerging church movement. If the emergent church movement does not find its life’s source in God’s grace, I fear it will become just another experiment in legalism. It might be a more socially conscious form of legalism, but it will be legalism none-the-same. In the long run, then, it will only serve to leave and new line of religious oppressed people struggling to do what they think God expects, rather than living with a powerful passion that genuinely transforms the world.
May 17th, 2010
Carrie Bevell Partridge
The message of The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley isn’t a new one, but it’s certainly one that isn’t always preached clearly. As a woman who personally struggles with legalism and a sense of earning God’s love and forgiveness and approval, I experienced a sense of relief as I read through the pages of this book. I have always known that Jesus’ blood covered my sins, but I still felt like I needed to “do my best” and “make God proud.” And if I sinned (which is daily . . . for everyone), I had better make sure those sins got confessed ASAP, and I’d better try harder to do the right thing next time. Effort, effort, effort. Thus telling God that His Son’s blood must not’ve been quite enough.
But Farley reminds us, “Our forgiveness and cleansing are solely because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.” It is FINISHED. Once-and-for-all forgiveness.
As I read his words, I could really feel the burden being lifted from Farley’s shoulders. He dealt with being driven by a guilt-based faith for many, many years, which only led to depression. When he discovered the LIFE that God intended to give us through His Son’s sacrifice, Farley began to experience freedom and God’s truly unconditional love.
“Jesus exposed the futility of life under law,” Farley explains. No one can keep every letter of it, and God doesn’t expect us to. He simply desires for us to love Him and accept His grace and forgiveness. He doesn’t want us to get down on ourselves when we sin; He wants us to simply desire what He desires. And since, as Christians, He truly does live in us, His desires become our desires. If we do not desire what He desires, then He is not in us.
“The message of ‘Jesus plus nothing’ from start to finish is often too humbling for us to swallow. Instead, we opt for performance hoops to jump through in order to impress God . . . The secret is that grace deactivates our pride. Removing the law from our lives means our self-effort is no longer prodded to control behavior. The law excites human effort. It encourages us to depend on resources outside of Christ. But unconditional acceptance deactivates human effort and allows the Holy Spirit to be all that he wants to be through us.” I love this. This is the freedom God intended.
It is vital for everyone–Believers and non-Believers alike–to be exposed to The Naked Gospel. The author’s fervor is contagious; his words are well-written; and his message is clear (as is the book cover–ha!) and well-delivered. Read it. And share it.
May 18th, 2010
adamkosar45
I received a free copy of Andrew Farley’s book, The Naked Gospel, a few weeks ago in the mail from Viral Bloggers and didn’t know a whole lot about it. The subtitle is enough to stir intrigue – “the truth you may never hear in church.” Sounds in line with a lot of the stuff I’ve been reading. Even the section titles are interesting enough, “Obsessive-Christianity disorder,” “religion is a headache,” and “cheating on Jesus” to name a few. I set out with high hopes of the book.
About half way through, I kept waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . two-thirds of the way through I actually went to the Viral Bloggers website to seek out some of my fellow reviewers in hopes of finding something positive to say. What I found there, instead, reinforced the opinion I was forming.
The premise to Farley’s book is well-intentioned. He confesses to having been consumed with an unfulfilled religiosity that had basically created a monster. He had become a stereotypical evangelical preacher/evangelist and was serious about it – heartfelt, ambitious, and (mildly successful. However, in the midst of all that – he felt as though he was missing something. For the most part, a beginning exercise that prefaces the gist of many evangelical books gracing the new release shelves as of late. However, in my opinion, Farley falls far short of following through.
In hindsight, I think there is a great deal of similarity between what Farley attempts to do with his book and what David Dark does in his book: The Sacredness of Questioning Everything in attempting to get beyond a rules-based “Uncle Ben” (from Dark) kind of God who is lurching in the dark to zap his people for their sins. Unfortunately Farley isn’t nearly as adept in navigating this premise. I don’t wish to question Farley’s ambition or the the relevance of this “naked gospel” for himself and others who have benefited. I am glad that he has found rescue from the oppressive and guilt-ridden past. However, there are so many glaring weaknesses, for me, I did not find this book enjoyable or helpful much at all. To summarize some of my biggest disappointments:
- I found Farley’s Reformed theology to be an obstacle to overcome. I certainly have no problem reading material that stands outside of my own preference or belief, but I found Farley’s Reformed take to be trite and lacking in several areas.
- While I applaud Farley’s desire to rescue Christians from the guilty pretense of salvific works and moralism, I was disappointed by his exclusively individualistic focus. The communitarian (essential – I would say) aspect of faith is all but absent. Salvation remains the outlook solely of the individual for Farley.
- Farley’s perspective of sin was also something I found too narrow. Related to the above point, Farley seems to completely overlook the communal nature of sin. What of the sin inherent in the powers and principalities? What of the addictive powers of sin? I could say more about this shortcoming, but I’ll leave it at that.
- The disconnect Farley draws between the old law and new law (old and new covenant) is much too sharp. To relegate Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount as simply convicting the Jews of the impossibility of keeping the own laws with no real moral implication for Christians today since we’ve been relieved of the law (I think that is a fair take on Farley’s presentation) was seriously lacking for me. His Reformed bias didn’t do much for me and his treatment of James as well.
- Beyond the theological and ideological shortcomings I saw in The Naked Gospel, if I would have resonated better with Farley’s writing style I could have become more engaged. Instead, I found Farley to be often trite with many shallow and random illustrations that didn’t flow well and were often over-explained. I found myself saying, “OK, I get it.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait to be done with this book and move on to something else. There were times when I felt like I was reading some kind of Reformed version of Joel Olsteen – probably more from his style than from his theology. A few words synopsis: Not what I expected, Good intention with poor follow-through.
May 19th, 2010
ricknier
Let’s suppose you know what grace is. Let’s further suppose that you even fall closer to grace than works on that grand debate. If you’ve ever said “God, I understand your grace. Thanks. What’s next?”, then I have a must read for you.
It’s called The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. It’s subtitle is ‘the truth you may never hear in church’. While the subject of grace is certainly heard in church, I suppose Andrew may be correct. The level to which he takes grace could take much longer to preach and teach than most pastors are willing to give to one topic.
And that’s too bad.
This book hits hard and honest on Grace and all of its questions, problems, balancing acts, scripture verses, applications and implications. Drawing largely from the book of Hebrews, Andrew brings to light God’s economy of grace and why the blood payment of Jesus issued in the New Covenant. It should change everything and it does change everything.
In one chapter he talks about conversing with a friend in college. “I don’t really know how to explain it. But the real thing isn’t about trying hard to act differently. Becoming a Christian is like dying and waking up the next day as a totally new person.” Six months later his friend recounts how he thought about that and asked God to kill him. Andrew admits that “God, kill me” isn’t your typical salvation prayer, but that is what this is about.
It could easily be said that the topic is too elementary to visit again. After all, shouldn’t we understand grace? I say this topic should be revisited over and again because this is foundational truth meant for or hearts and minds. As Jesus taught with the men who built homes on rock and sand, respectively, foundation makes all the difference.
read the original review at http://www.ricknierwoo.blogsppot.com
May 20th, 2010
jen_rose
What is the Gospel? If you’ve been a Christian for a while, then it’s very likely you can look no further than the verse everyone knows: “For God so loved the world, he gave his only son…” It’s “good news” that leads to much discussion and many conclusions, and in his book The Naked Gospel, pastor Andrew Farley defines it as such: Jesus plus nothing. The subtitle “The Truth You May Never Hear in Church” sounds provocative enough, but in the end, though he makes some good points and got me thinking, this new “naked” gospel is a lot more complicated than it seems.
The Gospel of Misery?
Farley sets up his premise with his own life: a recovering hyper-legalist, he describes a time where being a Christian meant working hard for Jesus, even to the point where he couldn’t sleep at night until he had shared the gospel with just one person. Though his case was definitely extreme, his “Obsessive-Christianity Disorder” turned into a joy-stealer, a Gospel boiled down to “Would you like to become a Christian and be miserable like me?” (p 23)
The Naked Gospel isn’t about this story though; Farley dedicates one chapter to a whirlwind tour of his Christian life, concluding, “Hope began with grasping an important distinction between two operating systems — one Old and one New.” (p 24) What follows is a presentation of the Gospel that brought him freedom. Drawing most of his argument from the book of Hebrews, he lays a dividing line between the Old Covenant (Old Testament plus the time frame of Jesus’ teachings) and the New (anything after Jesus’ death and resurrection) and explains what that means for today’s Christian life.
Old Things Passed Away…
Farley’s book gives a lot to digest, and some of the ideas are a little tougher than others. The heart of his message is to abandon the Law, the Old way, and reorient our thinking toward a gospel of salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection and nothing else. Which is great. Kind of.
The entire book’s argument hinges on a dividing line of Old and New established at Jesus’ death… not his birth. There is something to be said for this perspective that views Jesus’ teaching as under the Law, but the implications don’t always line up. By this thinking, teachings like the Sermon on the Mount are rendered messages of despair, to show people how they could never measure up to the Law. In other words: “Peter, James, John, and Paul wrote epistles about life under the New Covenant. Years earlier, Jesus was teaching hopelessness under the Old. The audience wasn’t the same. The covenant wasn’t the same. And the teachings aren’t the same.” (p 86)
In a way, it makes sense — Jesus raised the bar so high to show people the futility of reducing religion to a set of rules — but the dismissive tone of paragraphs like this is unsettling and confusing. If the Gospel is Jesus plus nothing, then why disregard his teachings as for another time and another audience? The epistles count, but the gospels don’t? Though this is the good news that rescued a legalist, for me it raised way more questions than it answered.
In Conclusion… nah, just kidding.
Don’t misunderstand… I do like fresh perspectives on truth I thought I knew. But somehow, it’s hard to pinpoint just how I feel about this book. One one hand, I appreciate the message of grace vs. works and absolutely agree that grace governs the lives of Christ’s followers, that our attempts to reach and grasp for God’s favor always fall short to the mystery of his love. This idea revolutionized my faith a number of years ago when I read Brennan Manning’s classic The Ragamuffin Gospel and informs it all the time. But I also prefer a more holistic look at the Bible, at the intricacies of Law and Grace, Old and New. Throw out one or the other, and you’re left with an extreme on either side.
If the “naked gospel” really is Jesus plus nothing, then shouldn’t we consider His own words regarding the past? “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” (Matt 5:17) Or was the Law fulfilled in His death, the accomplishment mentioned in the next verse? “until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.” (Matt 5:18) Did I just indirectly accuse the author of proof-texting with proof-texting of my own?
Ahhhhh, it makes my head hurt to think about it! This is why I read lots of memoirs. It’s so much less of a headache to read about the messiness of life without expecting answers.
Overall, this is a finely tuned argument with plenty of good ideas. Abstract concepts are broken down into logical pieces and fit together, Farley’s point is clear, and if you’re feeling caught in an endless cycle of trying to figure out how to please God and live right, then it could be the fresh approach you need. But as with any teaching/theological sort of book, read with both open mind and discerning eye.
As for me…. The Naked Gospel didn’t quite do it. If anything, it makes me want to re-visit The Ragamuffin Gospel, a classic I would recommend instead for burnt-out believers in need of grace.
– Jen Rose
http://divinest-sense.blogspot.com
May 20th, 2010
mike
The Naked Gospel
Ok, here it is. I posted on here that I would soon be blogging on this book i read called The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. For starters I would like to just point out that sometimes books have a way of talking to me right where God has been talking to me already. It’s sometimes like God already knew I was going to read a certain book and everything He had been showing me is right in that book. This one is no exception. I never agree with all that a book says and this one is no exception but because this is not a “debate” but more of a “book review” i am just going to state the facts of what this guy is saying and why I almost fully agree with him.
The main premise of the book is to point out what the gospel and what it isn’t. First we must point out what it is. What is the good news (gospel). Well it’s pretty simple. Jesus+nothing=the gospel. This thought has been going around my head for a few years at least and is the main reason I accepted Jesus in the first place. I realized that I was a sinner and had no hope whatsoever of pleasing God now or anytime in the future. The good news was that I didn’t have to do good to please God and that He understood this. Right now many people may be like *gasp* “what do you mean you don’t need to please God?”. I don’t need to please God because someone already did it. If we are honest with ourselves then we will have to admit that without Christ we will never please the God of the bible.
After we point out that the gospel=Jesus+nothing then we can move on, I believe, to the next point in life. IN CHRIST. Thats what we are if we know Him. We are no longer our own. strangely enough we aren’t even ourselves anymore (spiritually that is). There are many good points in this book about how we are not our own and I wont quote the book because I want to incite people to read it. I will however point out some scriptural points that are hit in the book which i have seen for a long time and that some people don’t want to admit/consider if they are in Christ.
The first point is “THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST”. Ask yourself if you are in Christ. If the answer is yes then we can move on. “HE IS A NEW CREATION”. You are a NEW creation in Christ Jesus. You are not “you” anymore spiritually. That is soooo awesome for one big reason. That reason is that we are poor in spirit. We are continually wicked. But, IN CHRIST, we are NEW.
WOW
That is just too amazing and we could stop there butIi don’t think it is enough unfortunately. Many will say “yeah but but but we are still sinners”. Are we? I’m not. the NT doesn’t call people who know Christ sinners. The NT calls them saints. So, you might ask, why do we sin. This one bothered me too and i never could grasp it except that there was still a part of me called “sin nature” that wanted to do sinful things. But a good point is brought forth in this book that i read a million times and mostly agreed with but just now kind of got it. It is not ME that does the sinning. If you are reading this and you know Christ then you know how much you despise sin and it grieves you when you sin because you probably feel like you “let God down”. If you don’t way then they may be a good or a bad thing. Good if you accept that you are accepted in Christ. Bad if you think that God is “OK” with sin. But, that is not my point. The point to this is that we are not our sin. Paul says “the things I want to do I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do those are the things I do therefore it is no longer ME that does them but SIN that dwells in ME”. Strangely enough I have been pointing this out to people and they just don’t want to accept it. They want the sin to be a part of them because they think that if they own up to it then they can control it and, I believe, also take responsibility when they do good things to. But contrary to popular belief it is not us that does the good things. “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I LIVE yet NOT I but CHRIST lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD”. My faith is not sufficient to live for God. I live by CHRISTS FAITH. This life is not our own we were bought with a price. We are now Christs and though there is this “sin” that dwells in us it is NOT US.
Another point in the book which I may or may not fully agree with is that a lot of people live in the gospels as kind of a “rule book” of sorts. I agree that this can be bad. I think it’s is better to see the gospels as showing us how much we cannot make it to God and how Christ IS the only way. There is a lot of emphasis on works and righteousness in the gospels. Why is that? Well this part I agree with Farley on. Jesus is talking to Jews under the law and IS in fact a Jew under the law Himself. But Jesus went to some extremes that we would never dare to seriously teach in “church” these days. Jesus said that if your eye offends you to pluck it out. Jesus also tells us that if our hands offend us that we should but it off. Now no one in their right mind would teach this would they? But when Jesus says the the Jews should have tithed and looked out for justice and the other good things of God as well they say that Jesus was saying we must tithe. Just saying that Jesus had an audience in the gospels that we don’t after His death and resurrection. And, this is another point that the author makes. We are not saints of the Christ on the cross. Forgiveness for the saints IS OVER. As Jesus said IT IS FINISHED. So what do we live in now? We live in the new life of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We have NO NEED for forgiveness from God anymore. Now it is easy for people to say “well yeah ultimately but you must confess your sins to stay right with God”. Is Jesus ever not right with God? Of course not and “the life I now live in the flesh I live but THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD”.
There are so many more points in this book but I don’t want to ruin it for you. this was just a short review and I hope it is sufficient enough to pique your interest to check it out.
My point (even if it wasn’t the authors so much) is that you are free in Christ. Free from guilt. Free from rules. Free from religion. You don’t have to play that role of “good christian” anymore. Is that saying we just go out and sin because we are free. “Certainly not” as paul would say. We are free to choose Christ. When we choose Christ we will not sin. Sin is NOT “just who I am”. Christs is who we are.
You can pick up The Naked Gospel here http://www.thenakedgospel.com/the-book
In Christ
Mike Pollie
May 21st, 2010
frgregoryj
Whatever might have been the justice of his criticisms of the Medieval Catholic Church, Martin Luther began a historical process that embodied a fundamentally different understanding of what it means to be Christian. For Luther and those who followed in his footsteps, to be a Christian meant not to live according to Tradition of the Church but to protest against it. We have reached a point now that when tradition–even Christian tradition–conflicts with the individual and his desires it is the individual and not tradition that is given the primary place.
All of this is at first attractive. There is something daring, thrilling even, to standing up to a bully and telling him off. Exciting, yes but also dangerous.
Unlike the bully, the Tradition of the Church is not oppressive but liberating. It is “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (see, Jude 1:3, NKJV). And while I would acknowledge that tradition–even the Christian Tradition–can be used to oppress the person, the rejection of tradition is a far worse state of affairs.
Without tradition, without a clear and shared sense of the norms of human life, a humanly meaningful life itself becomes impossible. And if this is true generally, it is even more the case for Christian life. Yes, there is the first thrill of rebellion. But then what? What happens when our enemy (real or imagined) is overthrown? What do we do then?
Within the broad context of Protestantism is that people criticize yesterday’s critics. We come to see yesterday’s heroes as those who would bind us, the new generation, even as they were once bound by those who came before them. The dynamic here is almost Oedipal. Just as a man rebels against his father, his son in turn rebels against him. But this isn’t maturity but childishness.
The vision of Protestantism is that of “neoliberalism.” The Orthodox Christian patriarch of Moscow, Kirill I in a recently published essay (“Norms of Faith, Norms of Life”) describes neoliberalism as an ideology “based on the idea of the liberation of the human person from everything that he believes could limit the exercise of his will and his rights. This model presumes that the purpose of human existence is the affirmation of individual freedom; and it affirms that from this, the person derives his absolute value.”
Thanks to my relationship with the Ooze, a site “dedicated to the emerging Church culture,” I’ve had the opportunity to read and reflect on works significant to the Emergent Church movement. For all that I admire the energy and enthusiasm of this movement, I’ve concluded that it is simply the latest manifestation of the anti-Traditionalism that is at the core of both Protestantism and neoliberalism. And like both, I fear the Emergent Church movement will in time fragment into every smaller sects, leaving it is wake spiritually and psychologically damaged men and women. Andrew Farley’s new book, “The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church” is latest example of this.
While the author makes some compelling points about what the back cover described as “the churchy jargon and double-talk” of contemporary Evangelical Christianity, his solution is not to return to the Christian Tradition but to move even further from it. Based on comments he makes along the way, I’m not sure that Farley even understand the Christian tradition as embodied in the life and practice of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
Take his argument that like “Saul of Tarsus [and] Martin Luther” Mother Teresa of Calcutta “wrestled under a religious system that brought [her] no enduring sense of satisfaction or accomplishment, but only misery” (p. 36). What Mother describes in her journal is not oppression under a religious system but what St John of the Cross calls the dark night of the soul. That Farley confuses spiritual purification with oppression suggest that he doesn’t even have a good, theoretical grasp, of the Christian ascetical and mystical tradition.
Or take his comment that “Within the Catholic vein of thought, saints are those who have suffered for the gospel [sic]. They’ve performed miracles and supposedly [!] achieved a higher moral state than the average Joe or Jane” (p. 98). Where do I begin? To anyone even remotely familiar with the Christian Tradition this statement is simply absurd. Did some saints suffer for the Gospel? Yes, certainly–the St Stephen, the Apostles Peter and Paul and the early martyrs chief among them. And did they perform miracles or develop the life of virtue more fully than others? I won’t speak for others but they’ve got me beat.
Contrary to his own assertions, Farley’s book is not about the Gospel. While I think he is right in rejecting the deformation of Evangelicalism, he simply substitutes his own idiosyncratic view of the Gospel for the one under which he grew up. This is simply another in a long string of attempts to justify Evangelical Christianity’s love affair with rebellion against Tradition. St Anthony the Great warns his monks about just this when he says “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.’”
The problem here is that without a solid grounding in the Christian Tradition, the Emergent Church movement, like Protestantism and Evangelical Christianity before it, has little to offer. My earlier reference to Oedipus was not accidental. Like the rebellious adolescent, Farley’s book confuses criticism with mature thought and supplanting one’s father with being an adult. This is not a surprise; criticism is easy. But stripping away the neuroses of Evangelical Christianity is different from presenting the Gospel in its fullness.
Farley does not present the Gospel in its fullness; he wants to present the “Naked Gospel.” But the Gospel isn’t, and never has been, “naked.” Like Joseph, the Gospel has always worn that divinely tailored coat of many colors (see Genesis 37:3) called Holy Tradition. “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15, NKJV).
If readers finds Farley’s critique compelling, they owe it to themselves to seek out an Orthodox Church and discover the Christian Tradition in its fullness. It is possible to live a life that is more than criticism. Through the sacraments of the Church you can become a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), progressively freer from your sins and evermore the person God created you to be.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
May 26th, 2010
ravyngurl
The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church by Andrew Farley begins with an epigraph by Arthur Bury from 1691, making the claim that the naked gospel “was the gospel which our Lord and his apostles preached,” which is what I expected this book to do. I expected to read a new take on Jesus theology, in which I would learn a bit more about what Jesus said and did and the ways in which those actions were revolutionary. I would have loved this book if that had been what it really did. What I got instead was a whole different story involving Paul, a Jew who supposedly grew to have no use for his traditional religious upbringing, and those people who came after Paul who also saw no need for relationship with the Jewish Scriptures. How, can I ask, does this present “the gospel which our Lord and his apostles preached”? Instead, possibly the epigraph should have been a quote from Origen who thought that Paul “taught the Church which he had gathered from among the Gentiles how to understand the books of the Law” and then ignore them. It seems as if Farley spends quite a bit of time discussing Paul and Paul’s aversion to his own tradition, which doesn’t seem like a Naked Gospel, but more of an interrogation of Paul. That being said, this book isn’t all bad; it just wasn’t what I expected.
Farley provides an excellent critique of our desire to remain staid in our own complacent following of hollow rules that we perceive make us good Christians. However, I am not sure that early Christians would agree with his reading of the meaning of old and new and the ways that he argues Christians are called to live a new life without considering the laws or the Jewish Scriptures. It makes no sense to advocate the very heavy disregard for the early Christians’ previous religious experience, especially because there is substantial evidence to the contrary. In fact, the very people Farley discusses—Peter, Paul, and the other apostles—did not leave the Jewish faith. They merely reconfigured their previous beliefs to fit with their newly acquired faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Particularly, Matthew adheres to his Jewish roots as he tried to convince both Gentiles and Jews that Jesus is the Messiah. Making such an adamant break from discussing Jewish traditions and religion is a major weakness of Farley’s text. I do agree with his assessment that Christians need to learn to avoid “the painful symptoms of un-necessary religion” (31), but does this need to be done by completely breaking away from tradition or previous manifestations of religious worship? I think not. Even Paul, who Farley quotes sometimes very out of context, references his own religious and secular traditions as well as the religious and secular leaders of his time.
The main tenet that Farley proposes with which I agree is the idea that we are free from sin. We are always already forgiven, and too many Christians don’t realize it. They are crippled by the perceived necessity to keep accounts of their sins and to compulsively ask forgiveness for those sins, sometimes to the point of unhealthy self-reflectivity and analysis. I love the song “Everything Glorious” by David Crowder Band, because it makes this claim so well. I think Farley is getting at the same question as Crowder: “You make everything glorious and I am Yours, so what does that make me?” According to Farley, “It’s important to understand that we’re joined to the risen Christ, not to a dead religious teacher” (180). I would even take this a step further and say that we are the risen Christ. Whatever is to be done on this earth now, is to be done through us as we are the manifestation of the work that Jesus did on the cross. We are required to be Christ to people: “Genuine growth occurs as we absorb truth about who we already are and what we already possess in Christ” (187). I concur.
In short, I liked this book because it challenges several commonly held beliefs in contemporary Christianity, such as the idea that we have to change who we are to be perfect Christians. As Farly writes, “Having Christ live through you is really about knowing who you are and being yourself. Since Christ is your life, your source of true fulfillment, you’ll only be content when you are expressing him” (194). I agree but my main complaints about this book can speak directly to this idea: what if the way you experience Christ living through you includes a love for and an adherence to those “Old Testament” ideas that he claims are null and void? Can we really claim that the naked gospel is a gospel void of any sense of tradition or Jewish scripture, relying solely on tradition and reason to inform our actions as Christians? I don’t think so. I don’t think this is really “Jesus plus nothing.” It’s more like Jesus nothing with a heaping helping of misread Paul. I would recommend this book, simply so people could wrestle through all of these ideas as Farley adeptly challenges the reader to think critically about a variety of ideas.
Jun 1st, 2010
TatPriest
The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley
I don’t often but books down until I’ve finished reading them. Even the bad ones; I struggle through every page, sometimes in excruciating agony, but I generally end up at the end. This is especially true of books I get for free. This month I somehow received four books from Viral Bloggers so I feel obligated to read each one to the end.
I may not make it with The Naked Gospel, which is sad because I enjoy being naked.
It seems to me that Farley’s Naked Gospel is one that he’s made up. Made up, that is, with a great deal of help from the apostle Paul. Farley’s basic premise is that in Christ we have “freedom.” Freedom to do, freedom to be. Things like the Law or Guidelines for Christian Living and such are all part of the Old covenant. In the New Covenant we are simply free.
I found it somewhat ironic that Farley’s new, Naked Gospel was based not on the gospels, synoptic or otherwise, but on the writings of Paul and the unknown writers of other epistles. In fact, I would guess that, though he would never admit this (wait actually he does), the teachings of Jesus are part of the old covenant and not relevant for Christians today. So ‘Naked’ is actually a completely new gospel. Please turn with me to Naked, Chapter 14, verse 4.
The Sermon on the Mount make you feel guilty? That’s ok Farley tells a parishioner. The Sermon on the Mount may have been Jesus’ greatest moment; its principles may have been his ‘stump speech’ through most of his ministry. BUT, says Farley, it was not for you, you in this case being New Covenant folks. It was written for the religious elite and Jews who were still under the old covenant. No guilt necessary because the Sermon on the Mount contains rule and those rules no longer apply.
Are we then, in Farley’s new gospel free to sin? Of course not. The Holy Spirit will replace out selfish desires and replace them with holy desires (or something close to that). I forgot to mention that the reason we are all free is because our sin is no longer ours. Farley is a true substitution-ist. Jesus paid the price for our sins by dying on the cross. So when God looks at us he sees not us but the holy image of Christ. We adopt, through a re-birth, Christ’s sinlessness. But Farley goes one step further. According to him our reborn self is no longer sinful and no longer desires to sin, even though Paul has a lot to say about his own sin. The source of our sins, subsequence to salvation, is an entity, an actual being, named Sin. Sin influences us, temps us, and may cause us to do things but our re-born self remains sinless. Freedom to the nth. Farley adds a rather weak qualifier that we are to try to attempt to control Sin and limit his/her influence on our lives. Freedom replaces personal responsibility.
That’s about where I stopped. Maybe I’ll pick up Naked again and finish it. Maybe, but I’m free not to.
Rev. Scott Ziegler
http://tattooedpriest.blogspot.com
http://www.abeachwedding.com
Jun 1st, 2010
Bipolar Bear
Every now and then I find a book that grabs hold of me and challenges my conventional wisdom and thought processes. The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley is one of those books. Farley is a tenured professor of applied linguistics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. He is also the lead pastor of Ecclesia (www.ecclesiaonline.com) also in Lubbock.
The simple premise of The Naked Gospel is “Jesus plus nothing”. This also happens to be the overarching theme of the statement of faith at Ecclesia. This premise was very intriguing to me as I have been trying to discover how to have the childlike faith in Jesus Christ that he wants us to have. My blog that I have had for the last four years is called puerile dogma…another way of saying childlike faith. So I have to admit I was pretty excited to find a new book that opened up and explored this topic in depth. What stunned me was how simple it really is and how far off base I had been all these years. The Naked Gospel strips away all of the religiosity that has been added to the gospel over the last 2000 years and brings a fresh and simple perspective to the Christian faith.
If you are tired of battling sin and temptation every day and wondering how you can truly call yourself a Christian when you are struggling so much…read this book.
If you keep running around in circles trying to figure out God’s will and you have become a victim of analysis paralysis while trying to make decisions…read this book.
If you are confused by all of the different teachings you hear about prosperity, storing up treasures in heaven, obeying the Ten Commandments, being in God’s will or dozens of other topics…read this book.
If you are hurting because you feel your sins have made you unacceptable before God and you are ashamed of things you have done…read this book.
The Naked Gospel is not a substitute for the Bible; far from it. What it is, is a very easy to read book that opened my eyes to truths I had overlooked. Jesus plus nothing. It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Kevin Deisher
Fresno, CA
http://pueriledogma.blogspot.com/
Jun 3rd, 2010
RyanBraught
It has taken me a while to get to reviewing “The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley. It took me a while to get through it with my work schedule, my wife taking two classes, and honestly other books taking priority over this one.
On the back of the book Farley says, “Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives. It’s the truth you may never hear in church. The Naked Gospel is a chapter-by-chapter assault on the churchy jargon and double-talk of our day. It puts forth a message that is simple but life changing.”
With those words I was expecting a mind blowing, faith challenging, world shifting book. And unfortunately that is not what I experienced.
Now that isn’t to say that I enjoyed some parts of the book. Farley helped me to realize again that it isn’t what I do for God, but that God loves me unconditionally. That no matter what happens, no matter how many times I sin, no matter how I mess up living the values of the kingdom, Jesus’ love is constant. That is a great reminder that we all need time and time and time again. And that it isn’t by our own wisdom, strength, faith, belief, or service that we obtain salvation, but only by the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
My main issue however is a large one. The book is called “The Naked Gospel.” Questions then arise in my mind, What is the Gospel, What did Jesus mean by The Gospel, What do the 4 writers of the “Gospels” mean? All those questions that I have/had, weren’t found in this book. The book relies heavily on the Pauline letters instead of the 4 gospels. I was hoping more for an in depth look on what Jesus said was the gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God. It was sorely missing.
I agree with the thoughts of Scott Ziegler (above) when he says, “I found it somewhat ironic that Farley’s new, Naked Gospel was based not on the gospels, synoptic or otherwise, but on the writings of Paul and the unknown writers of other epistles. In fact, I would guess that, though he would never admit this (wait actually he does), the teachings of Jesus are part of the old covenant and not relevant for Christians today. So ‘Naked’ is actually a completely new gospel. Please turn with me to Naked, Chapter 14, verse 4.
The Sermon on the Mount make you feel guilty? That’s ok Farley tells a parishioner. The Sermon on the Mount may have been Jesus’ greatest moment; its principles may have been his ‘stump speech’ through most of his ministry. BUT, says Farley, it was not for you, you in this case being New Covenant folks. It was written for the religious elite and Jews who were still under the old covenant. No guilt necessary because the Sermon on the Mount contains rule and those rules no longer apply.”
I am not saying that this book wasn’t helpful. But for me, I read Paul through Jesus not Jesus through Paul (though I don’t believe Paul and Jesus stand in opposition). Let’s get back to focusing on what Jesus calls the Gospel, the good news of the kingdom of God both now and in the future.
Jun 7th, 2010
pomotheo
http://www.pomotheo.com/2010/qod/reiew-the-naked-gospel-by-andrew-farley/
Naked Gospel: sounds edgy but it wasn’t.
Maybe I’m not the target audience. Actually, I know I’m not. This is for a reader squarely planted in the middle of Christendom who takes in a conservative brand of Christianity weekly. To that person this book is certainly to geared to offend, (as most conservatives are quite easily offended it doesn’t take much to receive such a response).
Farley began the book with great promise, the questions he posed caught my attention in his mini introductory exam.
In true or false style he poses the following:
It would have been much easier if he had answered the questions directly in the 10 points he presents them, but Farley doesn’t–albeit all were in some form answered. (It would have helped me for clarity sake.)
The first quarter of the book seemed to be an endless tirade against Old Testament Law. I got the point, and I suppose I can understand why someone, who treats the OT laws as somehow relevant today, might require the explanation, but it seemed to drag on and on.
I also don’t agree with the premise of casting away the entire of the OT law. It’s not to say that OT Law should be followed, but I DO believe God had a plan in place with the law that wasn’t achieved. I don’t agree, which I believe is incompatible with Farley’s premise, that God somehow changed the game and made salvation easier through the person of Jesus Christ.
However, I did pick up the essential piece: as Christians we need to be adamant to accept people over rules and propositions. I see how this could be a startling revelation for Christian types who prefer rules; these types are also routinely unwilling to test the statements of their faith treating opinions as canon. Farley does well to highlight some important themes that may sound right, but are not adequately supported in scripture.
Back to the thought on OT Law being the ‘Old Law’ and necessary to be cast away. I think the Law held a purpose in that it was through the law that the ancient Israelites were to usher in God’s dream of new Kingdom. God’s dream didn’t change, but instead of law the incarnate Christ takes its place (or more specifically Christ replaces Israel as supreme example of God’s Kingdom on earth and a glimpse of God’s redemption plan to come in the future). To casually toss away the OT law, which I doubt Farley advocates but readers may certainly ascertain a flippant attitude about it, is careless and perhaps dangerous when it comes to understanding the grand narrative of scripture.
I also couldn’t comprehend the idea of atonement and forgiveness. Farley spends the entire book condemning OT Law, however, when it comes back to forgiveness he goes back to the very RULES in the law to explain why forgiveness requires blood. Either the OT Law is dead or it’s not. It doesn’t make sense to suggest that Jesus has to fulfill OT Law if we’re to cast it away. I couldn’t figure out why it seemed the first half of the book condemned the law and the latter half spoke about fulfilling components of it….
Furthermore on that subject, I wouldn’t suggest God is even subject to the law — which was presented for the people. There is no indication that God much follow rules set out for people, after all, he is God (although I’m certain the theological implications of what I just said are complex).
Farley’s take on how Christians need to spend less time thinking about building rewards in heaven and feeling guilty about their sins and how it ruins fellowship with God is important (for the very same target audience I labeled earlier). I felt his explanations in the very least were enough to force readers to re-assess how they approach conservative Christian norms for seemingly foundational items (or at least items taken for granted).
Also, the latter chapters dealing with the Holy Spirit as advocate and not invisible guilt tripper was another gem to help set the reader free from potential ‘rules and regulation’ bondage and hopefully into engagement into a life centered around the person of Christ and his ministry to engage and redeem the world.
Too much time on the ‘Old Law’ with confusing returns to the very same thing he was trying to outlaw. But enough important elements to make it an average read. Wasn’t for me, but for someone in the right space as he’s likely shooting for it would be far more relevant.
2.5 starts out of 5.
Jun 9th, 2010
bdormaier
I love books! And I love receiving books to review. They’re free and I’m generally interested in them, so I was excited to receive The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley in the mail Through the Ooze Viral Bloggers because it looked like a book I would be interested in.
Unfortunately, my excitement waned after beginning to read the book – for reasons which I will name in a moment.
First though, I’d like to give a general overview of the book. Farley starts by introducing us to his story – growing up in a fundamentalist, legalist background where you are never good enough, Farley became addicted to evangelism, as a means of relieving the guilt he would constantly feel for not being perfect. What follows is a discussion from Farley on what he has discovered in the Bible and how it has helped him recover from the issues he acquired through his background.
Before I begin a critique, I want to start by mentioning that I agree with much of what Farley had to present. Legalism, the idea that somehow we can earn being right with God, is a harsh danger towards a number of Christians, and unwittingly robs many of really understanding freedom in Christ. I whole heartedly agree with Farley in this regard.
What I found however was that through much of the book, it felt like Farley swung the pendulum too hard in the opposite direction… Since the Gospel isn’t legalism, then the Sermon on the Mount must not actually be about a way to live, but about showing you you can’t live a good life. Since the gospel isn’t about how you live, then certainly James’ statement that faith without works is dead must mean something different than what it appears to mean. John’s encouragement in 1 John that we confess our sins? Us not believing that Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient. To make many of these points Farley has to jump through hoops and attempt poor re-readings of texts to make his points. As part of this, Farley concludes that the Christian tradition of confessing sins is no longer needed. In his attempt to protect the Gospel from Legalism, Farley misses just how much of New Testament teaching IS about how we live. Farley has to make the stance on the old testament that it is totally about a broken system, making the way that Jesus relates disjointed from the Old Testament – Jesus is not the continuation of how God has been at work through Israel, but rather the end of that plan, leading me to the question of why God would toy around with all of us for so long.
The thing about The Naked Gospel is that it’s not all wrong, it asserts many points correctly and many points which I agree with. But in it’s attempt to argue that the Gospel is not legalism, it vastly oversteps its bounds moving too hard in the opposite direction, which is ironic since Farley also mentions the Gospel to not be antinomian.
In the end, I found myself having a hard time viewing this as a book I would suggest to many of my friends, because I think that Farley takes it too far. Thank God that we aren’t called to legalism, and it’s that that I can agree with Farley about.
3 Stars out of 5
Jun 12th, 2010
SGill4613
The best part about “The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley is the dust jacket. Seriously, its really cool. Its clear plastic with a picture of a leaf on it and within the leaf is more clear lettering… when the jacket comes off the cover a bit, it gives the title a really cool 3D effect. I wish all books came with this style of dust jacket.
After you get past the dust jacket, then things start going south.
Farley attempts to replace the Hebrew Scripture’s legalism with New Testament perfectionism. That somehow, God’s grace, transmitted through Jesus’ death, makes Jesus’ followers free from sin and the law.
Some thoughts I had while reading…
Replacing legalism with Christian perfectionism is not a positive replacement.
If you’re going to have the word “gospel” in the title of your book, then perhaps you should quote more from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John than Paul’s letters. This book would be more appropriately titled “Paul’s Gospel”.
The back cover blurb of this book is a lie. It reads “Jesus plus nothing. 100% natural. No additives. It’s the truth you may never hear in church. the Naked Gospel is a chapter by chapter assault on the church jargon and double talk of our day…”
As I turned each page, I kept waiting to read the good news. And with each turn, I grew more and more disappointed. I think people know Good News when they read it, hear it, see it, experience it. This book failed on all accounts.
Final thought: I wouldn’t even put this book for sale on Amazon.com for fear that someone might think Farley is right. I’ll just recycle it so that it might be turned into something more useful. But I will keep the cover…cause that was pretty innovative.
Jun 14th, 2010
Debby Albrecht
Original reivew at http://debbyalbrecht.blogspot.com/2010/06/gospel-youve-never-heard-by-david-i.html
In previous posts I’ve mentioned that I do some reading and blogging for Viral Ooze. They give me books that I wouldn’t normally read in exchange for blogging about them
This time I chose two books, The Naked Gospel by David Rudel and The Gospel You’ve Never Heard by Andrew Farley. These books start with the authors sharing their discontent with what they believe the modern church teaches about salvation, grace, works and the law. At this point they diverge significantly; one author, Farley, claiming that the Law has no place in the life of a Christian, the other (Rudel) claiming that Jesus calls us to follow the Law and that believing in Him does not guarantee a place in heaven.
As an evangelical I struggle with both views. Faith in Jesus Christ does not exempt us from being responsible for our neighbor or from living righteously as Farley would lead one to believe. But I cannot agree with the position that seems to be taken by Rudel, that faith in Jesus Christ is insufficient to guarantee my position as a child of God apart from the Law.
As mentioned by several bloggers before me; font changes, grammar and errors made The Gospel You’ve Never Heard a very frustrating read. The author would have benefited greatly from an editor with the eye of a reader. The name of the publisher, Biblical Heresy Press, was also offputting.
While I did not agree with all that Andrew Farley’s arguments, it was a much easier read due to it’s structure and the care with which it was written and edited. There is a significant benefit to being published by a publishing house with the expertise of Zondervan.
Jun 21st, 2010
kevinstewart
I just finished reading The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. This book presents a gospel that may not be familiar to some. It’s a gospel uncluttered with the jargon presented by the church at large today. It’s a gospel free of the rules that many are indentured to. It’s a gospel that leaves behind the idea that my goodness gets me to God. Plain and simply, The Naked Gospel is Jesus plus nothing.
http://kevinstewart.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/the-naked-gospel/
Jun 21st, 2010
TheLogo
“The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley. This book attempts to address a real problem in the church, that of legalism and earning our way into God’s grace, by presenting “the truth you may never hear in church.” This truth, however, turns out to be a gospel severely truncated by reductionism, riddled with theological problems, and which fails to allow the bible to speak. Though I sympathize with Farley’s aim, and agree with several of his positive points, his approach and arguments are, in my opinion, deeply flawed.
http://thelogo.blogspot.com/2010/06/naked-gospel.html
Jun 23rd, 2010
Loffers
I seem to be establishing a bit of a habit with my Ooze Viral Blogger reads lately, that of finding books that both frustrate me and speak to me despite my frustrations with either the writing style or the views of the author. This latest book, by Andrew Farley is no exception. I was intrigued by the abstract, especially the idea that this would be a description of grace-filled living that was so radical it would not be preached in your local church and courted controversy (something I enjoy courting). However, I was also a little concerned that this might be another trendy ‘new Calvinist’ treatise that would depress me with its unholy combination of apparent progressive accessibility with still deterministic/fatalistic dogma. But the clincher of the deal was the promise that it would show why you did not have to tithe (something I believe already but would appreciate seeing being taught).
It has taken an age for the physical book to make it to the UK, but despite the amount of football I am watching during the World Cup (with accompanying beer of course), I have managed to squeeze in reading this during my 4 week deadline.
One section I did appreciate was the review of the Romans material on ‘reckoning’ yourself to be dead to sin because it is a reality, not in order to believe it. I remember reading Watchman Nee’s classic, “The Normal Christian Life”, many years ago and how this difference struck me forcefully then. Whatever my thinking about some of the material in this book, I do like the challenge it presents to take seriously the claims Paul makes in all his writings as to the present reality of us being already dead to sin, fully forgiven and having Christ present within us.
Later the sections on the compatibility of the Holy Spirit’s attitude toward us with that we see as the relational position of Father & Son who died for us are also a welcome emphasis. It is easy to slip into the Christian cultural myths of ‘angels that leave the car when you go over the speed limit’ and other nonsense.
However, for all the scriptures cited and expounded in this book (and there are plenty), it left me uneasy and I don’t think that is just because it challenged some sacred beliefs held in Christian circles (I tend to welcome that). Rather it is the strident and certain tone of the work. Don’t get me wrong I do think Andrew is on to something, despite the somewhat Calvinist emphasis – but I just wish he wasn’t so damn sure of himself. Despite the appeals to reality throughout the book (which is a transparent and good emphasis), this level of certainty itself strikes me as at odds with my normal Christian experience.
For full review visit:
http://web.mac.com/paul.laughlin/Loffers_Lair/Book_Reviews/Book_Reviews.html
Jun 27th, 2010
gdeitz
I recently completed Andrew Farley’s, The Naked Gospel. To be totally honest, I do not know how I would rate the book. I found myself thoroughly enjoying a chapter or section, only to feel a few pages later that it was time to move on to another topic. I felt that as I read the book, a new chapter would begin, but the topic of conversation or even the approach to the same topic did not change much at all.
With that said, I still think that I would recommend this book to others. I would recommend this book to those that some times need to be hit over the head numerous times before things sink it. The topics within the book, were not mind-blowing or staggering. The fact that the book centered on the idea of “Jesus plus nothing” is obviously not a new convention. Churches and people have been arguing on the proper way to do “Jesus plus nothing” for ages.
I appreciated the approach that Farley took with this book though. It felt conversational and easy going as opposed to a book that relied on demonstrating superior knowledge in order to woo the reader into thinking the author was much more intelligent and therefore must be right. I was able to leisurely approach the book and find enjoyment in the metaphors that were used. I enjoyed the discussion on the law and the new spiritual creation that one becomes when they are reborn.
Overall I appreciated the message that Farley was wanting to bring and share. I got bored when it seemed that it was slow to move from one idea to the next. Or at times, I would think we had moved on, only to return to the same old topic and the same conclusion.
If I had a star system to rate this book, I would still give it 3.5 out of 5. The material is presented in a way where most anyone could understand it and be encouraged by it. Even in the areas where my personal beliefs did not line up with the authors, I did not feel threatened by the differences. It never came across to me as a “my way or the highway” book and that is something that is commendable in today’s culture.
Jun 28th, 2010
Ben Simpson
Andrew Farley wants all to know that the good news is that Jesus has accomplished all things necessary for salvation. You don’t have to evangelize one more person to assure your standing with God. You don’t have to be consistent in prayer or Bible study, church attendance, or other religious activities to secure your eternal destiny. You simply have to trust Jesus.
Farley is a recovering legalist, someone who added a great deal to the simplicity of the gospel in order to prove his keep to the God that supposedly loves him. In a story that has been told repeatedly with many small variations, during his high school years Farley was a popular, intelligent, athletic, and attractive young man who seemed to have everything going for him. Yet, by his own recollection, all of those successes provided him with little sense of security, for he felt that in his spiritual life he was nothing but a failure. He always felt as though he wasn’t doing enough. It wasn’t until he discovered the heart of the gospel, a stripped down account of Christianity, “an intravenous shot that wasn’t poisoned with religiosity,” that he experienced freedom in Christ. He discovered grace.
The beauty and simplicity of this book is compelling. Jesus plus nothing. Those words are featured on the jacket, are prominent throughout the argument, and are the clear implication of Farley’s presentation of the New Testament message. In essence, those three words sum up the book from beginning to end. And though many Christian preachers may betray that message with their actual presentation of what constitutes the Christian life, on the surface I believe that most in Christian circles would agree with Farley’s message. The question then becomes how Farley makes the case. Is his argument convincing; his logic sound? Is his exegesis true to the text on all occasions, or does he prooftext his argument? In the words of Scripture, does Farley “rightly divide the word of truth?”
In this regard, I submit that he does not. It isn’t that I disagree with the gospel of grace, or the magnitude of such a claim. I disagree with Farley’s use of the texts that underly his argument. I disagree with Farley’s assessment of “supercessionism” and his claim that he is most definitely not guilty of suggesting that his argument leads to such a conclusion. I disagree with Farley’s suggestion that the gospel of grace is as rare as he claims it is in Christian proclamation, and that the church today is wrought through with a rampant form of legalism that suffocates, misleads, and binds most Christians today to various forms of inaction, guilt, and works-righteousness. I think that Farley’s own testimony, which includes transparent accounts of his own struggles with guilt-ridden perfectionism and a need to prove his worth to God, is overextended in its application to most of Christendom. Farley projects his story, in my opinion, too broadly. And while there will be others in Christendom who resonate and identify with his testimony, I think the reality on the ground is much more complex. His diagnosis of the malaise the church exhibits is too simplistic, focusing on one symptom of a much larger disease.
In addition, throughout The Naked Gospel I found myself faced with eisegesis and straw-men arguments. For example, very early in the book, Farley presents his readers with a quiz intended to expose forms of legalism that have been adopted in contemporary church practice. The quiz itself is a farce, reducing such important ideas as repentance, confession, the Old covenant, Christian anthropology and isn, judgment, tithing, God’s wrath, and imputed righteousness to simple statements, and then brushing them aside by saying that all of these things are forms of “religiosity” that the gospel has abolished. Later, Farley tells a story of his encounter at a pastor’s training event, and recounts an argument concerning the relevance of the Ten Commandments to those under the New Covenant with a group of other pastors. In sum, Farley wins the argument by saying that because the pastors with whom he spoke said Sabbath observance was no longer mandatory, neither does the remainder of the Ten Commandments have any binding force for Christians today. Farley lacks a sophisticated account of the relationship between the Old and New covenants. As for eisegesis, I do not care to recount places where I would contend that Farley’s interpretation of Scripture is problematic, but from my recollection my most serious concerns stemmed from his handling of Galatians, as well as his handling of Romans 7.
I trust that Andrew Farley is a wonderful person. He has a significant ministry in the city of Lubbock, and serves on the faculty of Texas Tech University. He has a TV program that is an extension of his ministry as Pastor of Ecclesia: Church Without Religion. He has a family, and I’m certain he is a loving person. Though it is difficult to separate any assessment of a work with the person who created it, I believe I must state boldly that my review is not meant as a personal attack on Andrew Farley. Yet I strongly disagree with his theology. I found this book lacking in so many ways. I found the biblical evidence lacking and even myopic, with too much focus on Hebrews and too little attention to how that book fits with the full scope of the canon. I found the personal anecdotes tiresome, and overly sentimental. I found the theology undergirding the doctrine of sanctification far too weak. I also found his historical account of the early development of Christianity hollow, full of two-dimensional caricatures that opposed the “Jesus plus nothing” message, clinging to “religion,” as though those who opposed early Christianity were a cast of cranks firmly committed to keeping the rules. I think this is poor historiography, and therefore poor evangelical theology, which seeks to understand the texts as they were intended for their original audience.
I am seldom this harsh when it comes to book reviews. Most of what I choose to feature on my blog are works that I thoroughly enjoy. But this book provides a sterling example of the trouble with much of contemporary theology. This book is shallow, simplistic, at times theologically absurd, extremely selective in the application of the Bible, terribly neglectful of the significance of the Old Testament and Jesus’s relationship to and significance for Israel, and, most regrettably, anemic concerning how Christians are sanctified by the work of Christ through his cross and resurrection. For all of these reasons, I do not recommend this book. Read something else. There are plenty of other works that have developed a better account of the “Jesus plus nothing message.”
Jun 30th, 2010
mickmurray
Andrew Farley’s book, The Naked Gospel, was an enjoyable read. In a nut shell he pretty much says that all you need in this Christian life is Jesus. And he is correct.
One of the things I have said many times over is that we cannot expect to change people. Too many times religion is used to shape someone into some kind of moral elitist, but that is not what following Christ is about. Religion, though it can be a good thing, can be harmful and unnecessary. Farley hits on this point, and I’m glad he did.
For the first half of the book, Farley explains some of the issues that have developed over the past 2000 years since Jesus was around. The second half then goes into some of his theology and such.
I like the idea, but am not completely akin to his theological views. But then again, do any of us have the same theology?
When all is said and done, only one thing will really matter; your relationship with Jesus. This is what is really what is at the heart of The Naked Gospel, and I couldn’t agree more.
Jul 6th, 2010
dvdbrumley
I recently completed Andrew Farley’s book The Naked Gospel. I really enjoyed this stripping away of theological debate and fuss about the gospel and Farley’s reliance on scripture to form his opinion. Let me start by saying this: this book cover and jacket are really great and very pleasing to view. In this book, Farley aimed to summarize and present the heart of Christ’s gospel in a way that someone who is new to the faith could easily pick up and understand. Farley strips away doctrine in many instances and presents the scriptures in their purest form. Time and time again I found myself going back and reading paragraphs a second and third time so that I could better remember what it was that Farley was saying. Farley’s often personal analogies to help explain concepts he discussed in the book were not only timely and well written, but often entertaining and worthy of repetition. While there would be a few things I would like to ask Farley for further discussion on after completing this book, Farley presents the gospel of our Lord and Savior in a manner that would increase the faith and understanding of Christ in both a new Christian or one who has had their mind flooded with years of religion and legalistic teaching. I would recommend this book to almost anyone and it would be good for a small group or book club review as there are questions at the back of the book that correspond with each chapter. I look forward to reading more of this young author
To read this review and others log onto http://www.thispilgrimland.com
Jul 10th, 2010
ahub101
Review: The Naked Gospel
I have just finished reading “The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley. The book is essentially a teaching of the gospel based on what I call a “grace-centric” interpretation of the Bible. Grace-centric” teaching revolves around the idea that Christians are covered by grace, so God does not even really care if they sin. I have encountered teaching like this before, bought into that teaching, and reaped some major negative consequences. So I went into this book knowing that I would not agree. And I don’t.
If you want to read a book revolving around a grace-centric teaching, then this book is for you. It’s all there: Christians have no need to ask for forgiveness anymore; Old Testament law (meaning the moral laws, not the cultic or purity laws) is not a good source of morality for Christians (in fact, it seems as though morality is not so important anymore); We are not on a spiritual journey, but have arrived; etc.
It is interesting to note that I would probably not be able to go toe-to-toe with the author to disprove his exegesis (though this book has inspired my to start looking more seriously at my Bible…not just for personal devotion). But I know from past experience and from present intuition that this teaching is off the rails.
I appreciate people who provide me with different angles to look at the same thing, for they help to sharpen me. In that sense, I am appreciative of this book.
Not much more to say at this point.
Original post: http://important-topics-ahub.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-naked-gospel.html
Jul 12th, 2010
'Seph
For starters – on a very simplistic level – this book’s laid out very well with chapters that are easily read within short, manageable time periods.
I’m very mixed on this book though. I found myself ‘suspicious’ at times, more often in the first half. I don’t believe this was due to any sort of apprehension or hesitancy with the author Andrew Farley’s ideas. I think more because he seems to walk a line between Churchianity and a Christianity that’s free from an Institutionalized church.
I was quite happy to see, in chapter 7, how heavily he focused on the fact that the Law breeds sin, arouses sinful passion, and is a ministry of condemnation; that the Christian who believes they are bound to the Law have missed the point. That Christian cannot and should not mix the two.
[But on a side note, he does seem to confuse Moses' ministry of condemnation with the entire bible at times, stating, ”Once enlightened by the Scriptures, we also agree that we're born in a sinful condition.”, pg. 98]
But this angle isn’t new. Countless churches and sermons and pastors have spoken on this issue. What impressed me was, in chapter 9, the author takes it a necessary step further – takes it to the street, so to speak, and applies it to the Institutional Church’s Holy of Holies. Sabbath Observance and Tithing; membership and money.
This caught my attention, as I have pondered and questioned some of these exact same issues in Repairing the Torn Veil
…but it was also at this point where I think he dropped the ball. He never really conclusively addressed this issues of Sabbath Observance or Tithing; or the implication it would have on the future church.
The overall impression I got was that we are free of the Law and how we cannot pick and choose which laws to observe or be free of (”The law is an all-or-nothing system”, pg. 65), but yet, – somehow – in some unspoken and elusive way, Sabbath Observation (read in, Going to Church) and Tithing (revenue stream) still count.
I’d like to learn more about Andrew Farley. I believe he is being honest and genuine in The Naked Gospel, please don’t misunderstand me. However, I can’t help but feel like this is a Conservative Evangelical Christian (pastor?) attempting to repackage and remarket the same old religion.
When I say Conservative Evangelical I suppose I really mean biblical literalist. There are certain statements that quietly presume this.
Well… you pretty much need to be a literalist to choose to wallow some of these events as fact. And God’s economy of blood doesn’t resonate very well with the more Liberal minded. Which leads me to seriously wonder, who exactly is this book aimed at?
The author tends to fall victim to speaking in Christianese; words and terms that only Christians or church-goes would readily identify and recognized. Yet he leaves these terms hanging; never retracing his steps to flesh out what they mean; I suspect deliberately allowing his reader to assume. Yet, if the initiated and experienced church-goer is the target, he shakes them up by stating,
…are unnecessary, or even wrong.
~
In the latter half of The Naked Gospel he seems to then swing to a near Universalist perspective. How else can we take this?
Jesus’ blood sacrifice on the cross was the once and for all blood sacrifice. He speaks of the priests of the Old Testament having to stand, (signifying that their job of attempting to repent and cleanse sin is never done), vs. the singular Priest (Jesus) of the New Testament sitting at the right hand of God because that job is now and forever finished.
Then he would seem to turn on the traditional Conservative Evangelical position when he states,
and
I, personally, can wholeheartedly agree, whether this is the author’s deliberate point or not. This is the end of religion. This is the death of religiosity.
The Law of condemnation has been decimated by Grace… and Grace is unconditional. Conditional Grace is no Grace at all.
Half of the endeavor is getting to this point – which I believe is this book’s agenda. But this is only half-way. Where do we go from here and what does this liberty look like is a necessary follow-up. To continue with religion and church as is, is the empty practice of repackaging and remarketing an old and defunct religion. Putting new wine in old wineskins.
… and I’m afraid this book fails to deliver this second stage in the equation. Maybe it was never meant to. I’m concerned this is a new fangled way of revitalizing stagnant church members while pitching what, on the surface, appears to be something New, appealing to and drawing in the masses of spiritually mindful people done with church; but all for the intent of renewing membership and increasing revenue. I sincerely hope it isn’t just a repackaged religiosity. I hope it will give its readers food for thought, challenge them to revisit presumed theological positions, and hopefully and legitimately ask the question,
Now where do we go from here?
Jul 18th, 2010
jimmyd8466
I’ve been reading The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley which the Ooze Viral Blogger program sent to me and I’ve really been enjoying it. The idea behind the Naked Gospel is the truth of the gospel without all the trappings that we’ve added over the years. The description of the book says it like this: Jesus Plus Nothing. I LOVE THAT. It’s an easy read and very thought provoking, and I believe, very honoring to Jesus and his intent for the “good news” of the gospel. It’s not a theological handbook or anything like that, but if you are tired of the stuff we’ve added to following Jesus, or if you feel like maybe you’d like to read a book that reminds you about Grace, and the way that Jesus sees you I highly recommend this book.
http://culturedrivenlife.blogspot.com/2010/07/naked-gospel.html
http://my.barnesandnoble.com/communityportal/review.aspx?reviewid=1425582
Jul 22nd, 2010
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